Solar Flair
by Ladyawesome45321
Summary: Growing up Skylee "Ash" Clark didn't have much. No home, no family. All she had was the friendship of a boy named Mick Rory; but when she is adopted on one fateful day, she is forced to leave Central City and everything in it behind her - including Mick. Skylee never thought she'd see him again, even after she returns to Central City to learn he's now one of CCPD's most wanted.
1. I Get Kidnapped and Join Some Freaks

Note to self: when a handsome British guy dressed in a trench coat offers you a sweet deal that seems too good to be true it probably is. I found that out the hard way, when Captain Hunter thoroughly screwed me over in some misguided attempt to save the future.

I remember the day he came for us like it was yesterday.

It was nearing nine thirty, and I was just closing up the little pet shop in Central City I ran over the weekends –Skylee'sPet Shop. (I'd been told it was vain to name a store after one's self, but I tried my best to ignore comments like that.)

The shop was a cozy little place – I hope the animals liked it anyways. There was always plenty of food for them in the back. The walls were painted a relaxing yellow, and I made sure that the floors were always freshly polished and mopped.

I was a bit OCD that way. The place always had to be nice and tidy (a bit of a challenge working with animals, I know). If even one bowl was empty for a second or one chew toy out-of-place I would go ballistic. (Animals were often better than people, and they deserved to be treated as such.)

I rubbed my eyes tiredly, as I counted to cash in the register for the night. Most of the animals were already fast asleep in their cages and tanks, and I was so ready to go home after a long shift... I guess fate had other ideas. (It usually did. That jerk.)

The bell rang above the door across the room, making one of the bulldogs wake and lift his head before flopping back down and returning to his slumber. I yawned, pushing my short bangs away from my face, as I eyed the man approaching.

He was around my age, thirty, maybe a few years older. I couldn't tell if his hair was red or blonde, but his eyes were bright blue. They were hardened, which was a bit startling , and he was walking briskly towards me, like a man on a mission.

His clothes were weird, too – a grey shirt under a leather jacket and trench coat. The man carried a bag over his shoulder, but he didn't exactly look like one of the students from the college down the road.

I frowned, my stomach deciding it would rather be an acrobat just then. My spine was froze in a block of ice; I could only manage one thought:danger!

"Uh, sorry. We're actually closed," I said. "Should have locked that. Sorry." It was a long shot, but I was hoping that I mighthave just been over reacting. He was just a normal person looking for a fury companion. Pet owners came in all shapes and sizes... Only he wasn't a pet owner.

The man shifted, reaching into his coat pocket, and I sat up a little straighter, inching my hand towards the silent alarm under the desk. Pins and needles struck at the back of my neck.

Sure, it wasn't often people robbed pet stores, but I figured I couldn't be too careful, especially considering the meta human out break two years ago had made things extremely easy for crooks of all kinds. Besides, this man, though very attractive, was giving me all the wrong vibes.

Except the man didn't pull out a gun. Instead, it was this unfamiliar object, somewhere between aflashlight and a pistol.

The man aimed it at me, and I froze. When he spoke, I heard a district accent, probably British. "I'm not here for a pet, Miss Clark." A white light flashed in my eyes, blinding me for a moment before I passed out.

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was the unbearable cold. Wind cut through my skin like a knife. I shivered and sat up straight, only to wince immediately. Because the second unbearable thing I noticed was a sharp sting on the side of my head.

"Argh. What a headache."

That voice had me freezing worse than the bitter wind rustling through my short blonde hair. It was gravely, like the owner constantly spoke with a low growl in an effort to make himself seem more intimidating.

Slowly, I turned to face the man beside me, my blood turning to ice. Sure enough, I actually sort of recognized him. Mick Rory. As teenagers we use to hang out together, but we broke things off when I'd moved away from Central for a while.

He had changed a lot. For one thing he was a lot thicker than he'd been as a kid, both in weight and muscles. His biceps were bulging, and his gut stuck out a little. (From the looks of it, he probably spent a great deal of time downing whole bottles of alcohol.) He looked meaner, too.

As long as I knew him, Mick had always been a bit rough around the edges, but now he looked like he would have no problem burning someone alive just for the hell of it. (According to the news he had actually done so many times.) There was scowl that never seemed to leave his face, as if he were just waiting for someone to pick a fight with.

His whole presence seemed to have gotten a lot rougher over the years, like he'd just taken all the worst parts about himself and amplified them. If it wasn't for the fact that I'd seen his face appearing on the news fighting the Flash every now and again I don't think I would have even known this was the same guy I'd been friends with all those years ago. It was really unnerving.

He looked unkempt. His jacket was tarnished, practically burnt to a crisp, and his pants weren't much better. (I was pretty sure he was wearing the same thing the last time I'd seen him on the news, which was exactly one week ago. It didn't look like he had changed or even bathed since then.) Orange goggles hung around his neck, that flame throwing gun of his dangling at his hip.

I shuddered, as another gust of wind blew over me, wrapping my arms over myself. I was only dressed in a thin t-shirt and a rather revealing pair of shorts, allowing the cold air to cut through me like a knife. Maybe I should have dressed warmer, considering it was still early January; but working in the pet shop often got very hot very fast. Besides, I hadn't been expecting to be whisked away by a gorgeous British stranger.

It probably looked pretty stalker-ish, but I couldn't stop myself from staring at Mick. We hadn't seen each other in over twenty-years. It was just so...bizarre. I wasn't sure he'd remember me, but when he spotted me looking at him, his eyes widened and he muttered, "Ash?"

It was a nickname he'd given me when we were kids. I'd confessed to him about strangely relating tothe ash after the camp fire had burnt out, in the sense that it was left alone and forgotten. (I was pretty angsty as a teen, considering I was an orphan and had more abandonment issues than I could count on both hands.)

I raised my hand, smiling timidly. "Hey, Farm Boy." Another nick name from our adolescence. He'd grown up on a farm, and I was feeling less than creative. (What? It seemed clever at the time.)

Mick grunted before turning away from me. I tried not to be too offended by that. We hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms. In fact, I hadn't even told him that I was leaving Central City. (I'd been adopted by a family, and they moved away from the city just a few days after the adoption had been made official.) He'd only found out after the move had taken place. Needless to say he probably hated my guts.

My attention was brought to another familiar face at the sound of an annoyed scoff. Leonard Snart. He definitely hated my guts. I never really knew why. He just had since the day Mick had introduced us. That was fine by me, though. I never cared much for him either.

Leonard was one of those people with that 'I'm smarter than you, so you are beneath me' attitude. He acted like he always knew better than everyone, as if he were god's gift to humanity or something. The guy was pretty hard to read, too. He could say one thing but mean something completely different. His demeanor had always been cold and distant, like everyone around him was just a nuisance.

He was wearing a blue parka, a pair of goggles similar to Mick's, albeit navy blue instead of orange, swinging from his own neck. I wasn't sure why he was wearing such a thick winter coat. It was cold but notthatcold.

Leonard glanced at me the same way one might regard the garbage in their trash can, but otherwise he ignored me. Instead, he glanced over to his other side, frowning distastefully. "Stein, what the hell are you doing here?"

Next to him was an old man with thinning grey hair and thick dark glasses. He was dressed in a tweed over coat and slacks that reminded me of a therapist or college professor. From the way he was staring at Leonard, as if he'd just taken a huge gulp of rotten milk, I figured he cared for the kleptomaniac as much as I did. The man gave a sassy response that only furthered that assumption. "For once, I am as ignorant as you are, Mr. Snart."

"Where are we?" That question came from a blonde woman standing at the other end of the roof, looking around in confusion. Her hair was a lot longer than mine and a shade or two darker, and even from a distance I could see her bright blue eyes. She was dressed in a thick fur coat and tight jeans that I don't really think I could have pulled off. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place where I might have seen her before.

Another man rose to his feet, standing between Mick and me. He was dressed in a thick, blue and red metal suit that made me think of some sort of Iron Man/Ant-Man mash-up. I recognized him from the news. He was one of the lower level heroes, one of those that didn't have a lot of coverage – the Atom, I think.

There was a glass visor covering his eyes, a small light making his face visible. His hair was covered by the helmet, but I could still see his big, brown eyes, standing this close to him.

He had a huge grin plastered on his face, even as he glanced around the roof with just as much confusion as anyone else. (I got the feeling he was a pretty optimistic guy.) "Uh, it looks like Star City," he said, looking out into the distance.

I followed his gaze, observing the buildings again. He was right. The sky scrapers were the same structures as the ones in Starling City. (Now Star City.) I hadn't recognized it at first, because I had only been to Star City a handful of times, and that had only been when I was a little girl or as a teen.

The blonde woman made a face, looking out into the horizon as well. "That's weird. I was in Tibet."

I blinked. "Tibet?"

The woman nodded. "Yeah, I was at a bar, and this…guy showed up."

"Oh yeah." This came from the young man next to the blonde woman. He was the youngest of everyone on the roof by far, barely out of adolescents, maybe twenty or twenty-one at the most. He was also one of three of the only people of color on the roof.

I guessed he must have been pretty sporty, considering the amount of muscles on his legs and biceps. "The same happened to Grey and me in Philadelphia." He gestured at the old guy Leonard had talked to before glancing around at everyone else. "What about the rest of you? British dude with a flashy thing? Ring any bells?"

I nodded quickly, remembering the man who'd walked into my pet shop. My heart rate had suddenly picked up, and my palms had grown sweaty despite the still chilly air. It was just dawning on me. I'd been kidnapped. Apparently, so had these people, but somehow that didn't calm my nerves at all.

The panic only seemed to rise as the others went on to explain how they'd been taken. Atom said, "Yeah, I was working on taking down Damien Darhk with Oli – I, uh, mean the Green Arrow…"

If I hadn't been so preoccupied by the beating of my heart in my chest, I might have paid more attention to the fact that he had almost used the Green Arrow's real name. I might have even pried a bit to see if he'd tell me what he'd been about to say.

The blonde woman gave him a scolding look, and he grinned sheepishly back at her.

A man spoke up at the other end of the roof. "We were in St. Roch saving a woman from a burning building." He was dressed in dark, golden armor, his helmet in the shape of a hawk's head. From his belt I could spot a mace.

Next to him stood a woman, dressed in a similar attire. (Though her suit had a much lower cut.) Through her helmet curly hair could be seen poking out, and she had freckles on the bridge of her nose. I recognized them from the news too. Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Also lower level heroes that barely got any coverage.

Leonard rolled his eyes, already getting annoyed at the heroes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he drawled out, gesturing at himself and Mick, "and we were in the middle of a heist. So, let's get on with this crap so we can get back to it."

I scoffed in response, promoting him to send a glare my way. I glared back, partly because it was a lot easier to avoid thinking about the fact that I'd been taken against my will when I was busy hating him. Mick groaned, running the palm of his hand over his face. I ignored his annoyance and turned back to the heroes. "Anyway, who was that guy? Where did he come from?"

"The name's Rip Hunter." He came from out of no where, startling me slightly. From the corner of my eye I saw that I wasn't the only one either. Several of the others jumped or reached for their weapons. The man didn't seem very threatened by that though. He went on, speaking calmly, as if there wasn't a group of people who could probably kill him with their pinkie fingers standing in front of him. "I'm from East London…Oh, and the future."

That last part took me by surprise. The future? Was this guy saying that time travel was real? It seemed impossible. Then again, there was a city-wide outbreak of impossible just two years ago in Central City. I stared at the man, Rip, eyes wide, hardly noticing the chilly wind any more.

Mick let out a low growl, which reverberated through his throat violently. I glanced at him worriedly. I'd only ever heard him make that sound when he was about to start trouble. Apparently, Leonard was thinking the same thing, because he had his hand raised slightly, ready to stop him if he started to do something stupid.

Mick's hand was on his gun, itching to yank it out of its holster and fire it upon the future man. He completely ignored the warning looks Leonard was trying to give him. "Nice to meet you, Rip." From the tone in his voice I could tell he didn't really mean it, though. He was pissed and homicidal. Two things he seemed to be pretty often since meeting Leonard Snart.

Rip eyed the Heat Gun with a bored expression, as if Mick was doing nothing but wasting his time. "Uh, while you were incapacitated I may have tampered with your weapons."

Ah. So that's why he didn't seem afraid of their guns and maces. Mick scowled but took his hand away from his gun and backed down. I folded my arms over my chest, partly because I was annoyed and scared, partly because I had started to feel the cold winds again. "Okay. So, what do you want?"

Rip started pacing back and forth in front of us, hands buried deep in the pockets of his trench coat. "I've assembled you all here, because I need your help. The future of the world is in peril because of a man named Vandal Savage."

Hawkman and Hawkgirl stiffened for a moment. They exchanged looks before glancing back at Rip with deep frowns. "That can't be," Hawkman said. "We destroyed him."

"Yeah," Hawkgirl nodded. "Green Arrow and Flash helped us do it."

I had no idea who this Vandal Savage guy was, and I couldn't remember any recent news about the Flash and Green Arrow working any cases together. Maybe it was something the news hadn't covered? Either way, I figured it wasn't my place to comment on it, so despite my confusion, I kept my mouth shut.

Rip turned to look at the hawk themed duo, still seeming a bit bored out of his mind, like maybe he'd rather be anywhere else but here. (I could relate.) "Therein lie the problem. Unless you or Mr. Hall deliver the death-blow, Savage can be restored from but a single cell."

That did little to clear anything up for me. I glanced around, but most of the others seemed to at least have a vague idea of what he was talking about. Only Mick and Leonard appeared to be put off. "What the hell are you talking about?" Mick hissed.

"Vandal is immortal," Hawkman explained. "Kendra and I reincarnate." He gestured at Hawkgirl by his side. I might have been a little more excited about learning their real names under different circumstances, but this was all too serial. Immortality? Time travel? There had to be a line somewhere. It was insane!

Even if it was true, though, I still didn't understand what any of it had to do with us. Why had Rip taken us against our will? Couldn't he have just asked us for our help? Something about his story didn't sit right with me…

The blonde woman nodded curtly. "Yeah, I've done that." She didn't seem to be as worried about Rip as I was. Though judging from that knife I caught hanging inside the sleeve of her jacket, I was willing to bet that she could take care of herself.

Mick scowled again. I figured he was just pissed that Rip had messed with his gun. With yet another growl, he asked, "What the hell does this Randell guy gotta do with us?" He'd always had a habit of saying exactly what I was thinking. I guess he was just actually bold enough to say it. I had only ever been able to speak my mind if I was really pissed or if someone needed their ass handed to them.

"Vandal," Rip corrected. He walked to the other end of the roof again, making sure to meet everyone's eyes as he went by them. Something about his gaze sent shivers down my spine. His expression was difficult to read. I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

It reminded me of some of the old foster homes I use to stay in, the ones with the foster parents who tried to get handsy with me. That thought made my stomach lurch; I glanced away from the alleged time traveler as he continued talking. "In the future, he will employ the evil he's perfected over his long life and the power he's amassed throughout history to finally conquer the world."

My stomach lurched again; and the shivers no longer had anything to do with the night's cold. One man could single-handedly take over the world? How could that be possible?

The blonde woman frowned with concern. She looked at Rip seriously and asked, "How?"

"To travel through time." Rip waved his hand across the sky dramatically, as if we were supposed to see something amazing up there. "To capture Savage before he grows into the monster he becomes. I've been tasked with assembling an élite team to stop him."

Leonard, who had been silently listening to the British man ramble on dramatically up until now, scoffed and started to walk off. "You got the wrong guy, Rip. Hero ain't on my résumé."

"Or mine," Mick added. The pair of them headed for a door that would, I assumed, lead to the exit. I debated on whether I should follow them. Rip was asking far too much of us, especially me, considering I'd never used my powers for anything more than heating up my popcorn before. I wasn't brave enough for the heroics thing, and I wasn't selfish enough to do the criminal gig. I just wanted to be normal.

Rip stopped the criminal duo before I could make up my mind, though. "I know it's difficult for you to fathom, but where – when – I'm from, the year 2166, you, and everyone on this roof, aren't just considered heroes…you'relegends."

Now, that definitely sounded too good to be true. Still, I found myself leaning forward, interested in what he had to say. The others' eyes widened, and they exchanged looks. Even Mick and Leonard stopped in their tracks.

The Atom tilted his head to the side. "Legends?" he repeated.

The old man made another disgusted face. "I, uh, hate to knit pick but doesn't a legend have to be dead?"

"Yeah, see, uh," the young man said, "that's a deal breaker for me. So, I'm gonna pass."

Rip hesitated. "It's dangerous for any one of you to know too much about your own futures, but I am here because each of you, as individuals, are destined for greatness."

"I could get behind that," Atom said. I couldn't help but nodding in agreement. Who wouldn't want to be remembered one hundred-fifty years in the future? Who didn't want to begreat?

Rip shifted, pulling a small remote from his pocket, as he hastily added, "And because if you don't follow me, this is what's in store for your world one hundred-fifty years from now."

He pressed a button on the remote, and the sky instantly turned red. I stumbled at the sight, a gasp escaping my throat before I could stop it.

Above the roof, horrific images hovered where the sky had become red. Women and children were being brutally slain. Men had died gruesome deaths. Cars were over turn, and the city was in shambles. Buildings stood on their last bricks.

I felt bile build up in my throat at the sight. My stomach lurched once again, twisting around me until I couldn't breath.

Rip took the image down a moment after he'd put it up, but it still lingered in my mind's eye long after he had gotten rid of it.

The others stood stiffly, eyeing the spot where the image had been a moment before apprehensively. Rip's eyes scanned over everyone slowly. "I could have chosen any time and any place. Of all the people who ever lived, I chose you nine."

Something about that look in his eyes made me feel guilty. I wondered if that was the point. "I sure hope you won't let me, or the world down." He placed the remote in his pocket again before pulled cards from his pocket and passing them around to everyone. "If your answer is yes, meet me at this address in thirty-six hours." Then, he headed for the exit.


	2. We Play Marty McFly

An hour later I was holed up in a grimy motel at the edge of Star City. I was sitting on the thin twin bed in the corner of the room, staring at the card Rip had given me, contemplating whether I should go.

I couldn't sleep, partly because the room was so dank and partly because that image Rip had shown us kept flashing through my mind. You know when you have a party and it's well over 'this is an ungodly hour' and there's just that one guest that wouldn't leave no matter how badly you wanted them to? That image was basically that guest for me.

All those people…those families that had been torn apart…They must have been so scared. I couldn't image having lived through it all.

My phone rang, and I jumped before letting out a long sigh and picking it up. It was my friend Ainsley.

She'd been my best friend since I'd moved out of Central City. We'd met our senior year of high school; she had gone on to join the army, serving for five years. In that time she had become a total bad ass, way tougher than I'll ever be. They knew all about weaponry, and had the fittest body I had ever seen.

She had also lost their hearing and their left leg during an unfortunate bombing accident. They had to use a prosthetic leg, now, and we had both learned to use, at least basic, American Sign Language. (ASL.)

As far as I was concerned that made them even more of a bad ass. Ainsley had never been the most conventional person in the world. For one thing they completely ignored gender stereotypes. She was gender fluid, constantly fluxing between female and non-binary, so she used she/her pronouns as well as they/them pronouns. (Hence my using the two interchangeably.)

Ainsley didn't conform to the typical femm looks either. Her hair was always kept in a short, buzz cut, and she had a tattoo on the side of her neck. She had piercing grey eyes and a small frame, in spite of the muscles she had developed from the army.

Their style was pretty masculine as well. They usually always wore baggy jeans and sweat shirts. Whenever we went out somewhere fancy, they would be the ones who put on the tux while I'd be the one who wore the dress.

I answered the call and propped my phone up against the lamp on the bed side table as the video image of Ainsley appeared on the screen. We waved at each other in greeting before she launched into a frenzy of frantic signing.

7:00 PRO-2 INDEX-[get] FOOD #WITH-me. HAPPENED-what qm-w

That was glossing, essentially the 'written down' version of ASL. Pro-2 referred to second person. Index meant you'd point towards or gesture something specific. The crosshatch meant you'd lexicalize a finger spelled word, which meant that you mutated the finger spelled word so that it looked like a sign.

For example, instead of finger spelling the word 'with' you would form two fists and bring your knuckles together. The dashes attached two words together. So, #WITH-me would be 'with me.' Without the dash the two words would read separately, 'with' and 'me.'

Qm-w stood for 'question mark wiggle.' In ASL if someone wanted to ask a question, they'd hold up an X hand shape and flex their index finger a few times; qm-w referred to that process.

Out loud, in English, that sentence would sound like, "You were supposed to get lunch with me at seven. What happened?"

Except in ASL, sentences were generally structured backwards as to the way English was structured. In ASL you also left out a few words, depending on the meaning of the sentence, and a lot of the same signs had different meanings. (Food and lunch, for example were signed the same way: placing your hand to your mouth as if you were munching on something.)

So, the sentence would look like: 7:00 YOU GET FOOD WITH-me. HAPPENED-what?

I gestured for Ainsley to slow down and listen. She stared at me, sending a silent message: This better be good, Sky! She took our lunch dates very seriously.

I told them about Rip Hunter and everything he had asked of those of us on the roof. Saving the world. Protecting the future. Savage. Time travel. All of it.

As I signed they watched my hands intensely. Her eyes widened by the time I had finished. She mouthed, Wow…

I nodded, knocking my fist up and down: the ASL sign for yes. Or in this case, an exasperated, "Yeah…"

Ainsley narrowed her eyes at me, a small smirk playing at their lips as they asked,

INDEX-[do] #WHAT qm-w

I shrugged. I would have asked what she thought I should do, but from the look on their face I could already tell what she thought on the matter. Frowning, I asked,

THINK PRO-2 #SHOULD #GO PRO-1 CL:2 running_off FUTURE! qm-w

Some English words didn't have ASL signs. Instead, you had to gesture or use classifiers, which is what CL stood for. CL:2 meant 'classifier using two fingers.' In this case, the classifier would be gesturing running with two fingers. Exclamation points meant you signed with extra emotions, a raised eyebrow or wide eyes.

The sentence would sound like, "You think I should go running off to the future?!"

Ainsley tapped her index and middle finger of her right hand to her nose before sliding it along the top of their middle and index finger of their left hand: the sign for fun. She thought going to the future would be fun.

I let out a short laugh and shook my head. I signed, Dangerous – left palm flat in front of the chest, as the right thumb came up in front of it.

They tapped their index fingers together before breaking them apart. But…

I stared at her skeptically, before they stared finger spelling a certain name…

M-I-C-K R-O-R-Y

My eyes widened, and I shook my head rapidly, waving my hands wildly. Repeatedly I signed No, no, no! – the index finger and middle finger touching the thumb – trying to cut her off before they finished signing his name. Unfortunately, their fingers were a lot faster than mine.

I glared at Ainsley's snarky grin. Every now and again they liked to make me regret ever telling her about my relationship with Mick Rory.

LEAVE INDEX-[for] FUTURE #NOT! LOVE STORY ("Leaving for the future is not a love story.")

Ainsley shrugged, flashing that mischievous smirk of hers. She went on to sign something about rekindling old flames. I stared at her seriously.

#DON'T P-U-N MAKE #BECAUSE PRO-3 ARSON #PERSON ("Don't make puns, because he's an arsonist.")

Ainsley chuckled. I rolled my eyes. They shifted in her chair before growing serious again. She looked me dead in the eyes, signing,

#BUT HONEST LEARN GREAT OPPORTUNITY #ABOUT SELF. #DON'T MISS ("But honestly it's a great opportunity to learn about yourself. Don't miss it.")

I nodded slowly and thanked her for the advice. We talked for a few more hours, just rambling on about total nonsense that didn't really matter in retro spec – what we ate last, how the pets were doing at the shop, the cost of gas shooting way up, politics. Whatever.

We finally hung up around eight in the morning, when Ainsley decided she needed sleep herself. Evidently, they thought I had already made up my mind about skipping off to the future with Rip and the heroes, because they kept telling me how I should get some sleep for "the big trip" too.

I rolled my eyes at her as they blew me a kiss. As they hung up, I flashed her the sign for I love you – index, pinkie, and thumb sticking out; and the middle and ring finger pressed against the palm.

Shutting my phone off, I rolled over, staring up at the ceiling of the motel room. It looked a bit, like maybe it had leaked at some point. (I tried not to think too much about that, worried I might throw up.)

I thought about what Ainsley had said. About this trip being an opportunity to find myself. I wasn't sure I really needed that. I mean, I was an orphan girl, pet lover, occasional protester, opinionated wanna be bad ass, a meta human. I enjoyed gory horror movies and drowning my popcorn in butter. What more was there to discover?

Still, the idea was somehow tempting. A chance to travel through the very fabric of time itself… Who would pass that up? Even if it was dangerous, I was being given the opportunity to see history unfold right before my very eyes. To learn the truth about how historic events truly happened.

On paper it sounded amazing. Action. Adventure. Excitement. But there were a lot of risks involved, too. For one thing, I hardly knew the full extent of my powers. Sure, the heroes could help train me, but I was worried I'd just end up being in their way more than anything.

Then, there was the fact that by waltzing into the past we could have been reintroduced to some very nasty viruses. We could affect the people of the past, and vise versa they could affect us. Or we could bring something back to the future with us if we weren't careful.

Not to mention all the ways the time line could have been damaged if we screwed up. I'm sure I didn't know as much as a Time Master like Rip, but I had read about things like The Butterfly Effect – the theory that if you go back in time and step on a butterfly, the future would be ruined when you go back to it. With my track record, I would probably end up stepping on some pretty big butterflies.

My mind had somehow wandered it's way to Mick. He was another issue. If we both ended up on the same team things could get very awkward very quickly, thanks to our past.

I wasn't sure if he had ever forgiven me for leaving without telling him. Never mind that Leonard would be there with him, making those annoying snide comments of his. Passive aggression really pissed me off…

Then again, it didn't really sound like either of them had been interested in Rip's offer. So, unless something caused them both to magically change their minds…

I let out a heavy sigh, letting my mind drift once again to that image Rip had shown us. Those people…families…children…They didn't deserve that. None of them did. If there was even a small chance that I could stop that from happening to them, if there was a chance I could help save them, I had to take it.

The next morning, I struggled to get myself out of bed, having barely slept the night before. Then, I gathered what little money I had to get myself a cheap change of clothes – jeans, a white tank, a grey windbreaker, and sneakers – and a cab to the address Rip had given me.

I just barely had enough to pay for a suit case and some extra clothes for the trip. I wasn't sure how long we'd be gone so I just got as many clothes as my limited amount of money could buy.

The place Rip sent us to was…underwhelming to say the least. There was a large, empty parking lot and one lonely building off to the right, a run down paper company that looked like it hadn't been open in ten years.

The sky was a dull blue color, the clouds thick and grey, as though a storm were blowing in. (I should have taken that as a bad omen and ran.)

Leaves were ushered along the concrete by the wind like a mother trying to rush her children away from a dangerous situation.

I groaned when I reached the building and spotted not only Mick Rory but Leonard Snart as well. Apparently I had underestimated the magical properties of the universe.

Leonard flashed me an unimpressed look. "Surprised you showed up." I was surprised he was even talking to me. Usually he just gave me the cold shoulder. (Pun intended.)

He was still wearing that stupid parka from the night before, that moronic ice gun of his still at his hip. I couldn't tell if he hadn't showered or if he had just slipped the same clothes on after getting cleaned up. Either way it didn't stop him from wearing his usual 'I'm better than you' smirk.

I shrugged. Gesturing between the two thieves I said, "In all honesty, I only came because I was convinced you two wouldn't be here." I did my best to avoid looking at Mick during the process, so it probably wasn't as effective as I'd been hoping it would be.

Thankfully, he wasn't looking at me either. He was too busy focusing all of his attention on the lighter in his hands, staring into the flame as if that were far more interesting than anything going on around him. Good to know not everything about him had changed in the past twenty years.

He definitely hadn't showered since we'd first been gathered on the roof the night before. His clothes reeked of smoke and other even grosser smells that I'd rather not describe. It had me worrying for his well being, but I figured it wasn't really my place to scold him about taking care of himself. I wasn't anyone to him. Not anymore.

Leonard responded with a shrug of his own. Somehow it seemed as if he were already bored out of his mind. Then again, he always seemed bored whenever he actually bothered to speak to me, as if I were somehow the most irritating person in the world, even though that honor clearly should have gone to him. "We're going to the past. That makes for some easy targets."

I rolled my eyes. Of course he wouldn't be doing this to actually help anyone. He never helped anyone but himself, and Mick just followed his every command like a dog.

I turned away from him, knowing that if I kept talking to him we'd end up trying to punch each other's lights out.

There were four others with them. Two men and two women. One of the women was the blonde woman, the one with the long silky locks and the bright blue eyes. She had changed into dark green jeans and a long, black t-shirt.

The other woman was a skinny woman who's face I had never seen before. Her dark brown hair was curly, save for her straightened, blonde bangs. The freckles on the bridge of her nose and her brown eyes seemed vaguely familiar, though.

I guessed she must have been Hawkgirl, or Kendra as I had learned her name to be on the roof, which made one of the men next to her Hawkman and the other the Atom.

The man on the left had thick, dark hair and a dazzling smile with perfect teeth. He was dressed in a black blazer over a red shirt and matching dark pants. He wore, with an astonishing mirror shine, probably Italian leather, loafers, so I figured he must have been fairly loaded.

That wasn't the thing that drew me in though. It was his eyes. They were the big brown eyes – the same deep brown ones, soft and warm like a blanket – of the metal clad super hero. This man was the Atom.

That meant that the other man was Hawkman, or Mr. Hall, as Rip had called him. (Later I learned that his first name was Carter and the blonde woman was Sara and the Atom was Ray.)

Carter had a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. A dark green shirt covered his upper body, but I could still clearly see his abs poking through the fabric. (Seriously, holy shit! Dude could have been a king with those abs.)

"You look kind of pissed," I noted, turning my attention back to Kendra.

"Perceptive," Kendra huffed, folding her arms over her chest.

"She lost the bet," Carter told me.

"He cheated!" Kendra insisted, sending a glare his way.

Sara shrugged, leaning on her suit case in front of her. "I wasn't going to come either, but my sister convinced me."

Ray nodded as a silver convertible pulled up in the parking lot a few feet away. "Looks like Stein and Jax are here."

"And still no Rip." From the tone of Kendra's voice I guessed the others must have been standing around, waiting for a while.

We started towards Stein and Jax, who was hanging limply out the side of the car. I wasn't sure why, but the sight made me a little uncomfortable. It didn't feel right…

Stein turned from side to side when he didn't see anyone in the empty lot; he threw his arms up, as if thinking: Oh, great. I've got the wrong address.

"Professor," Leonard called out to him, "this is the place."

The older man turned to face the group as we approached. He seemed a bit relieved to see us, only for his frown to return deeper when he realized Hunter wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Ray looked around, somehow still managing to keep his broad smile on his face. "I think we're being punked." He frowned for a second. "Do people still say punked?"

"No." Sara shook her head, looking annoyed. Though, I couldn't tell if she were more ticked at Hunter or Ray.

Mick had finally glanced up from his lighter, smirking as he saw the state Jax was in. Letting out a reverberating chuckle he pinpointed what was bothering me about the way Jax was snoozing in the vehicle. "Looks like your buddy threw himself a going away party."

Stein shifted nervously, fiddling with his glasses on the bridge of his nose. He cleared his throat. "Yes. I, uh, believe he drank something that didn't quite…agree with him."

My eyes widened at the sound of that. "You roofied the kid?" I couldn't help it, my voice came out much louder than I'd meant it to.

Everyone turned to me, looking shocked by my reaction, as if it were completely unreasonable. Mick even had the audacity to bellow out a huge laugh. I whirled around and glared at him. He just shrugged unapologetically, which only made me glare at him more harshly.

Ray shifted awkwardly, as Stein had enough sense to look guilty. "Look, I'm sure Stein had a perfectly good reason for –"

"There is no good reason for drugging and kidnapping someone!" I shouted. Ray shrank back. I felt bad about that, but in the moment I didn't really care. There was no excuse for this sort of behavior!

I had seen what happened when people were drugged and kidnapped. I'd once lived in a house for three months with this old man who was always trying to spike the drinks of the kids he was fostering. I wasn't sure how he had managed to even get a foster license, but it hardly mattered now. He was in jail now, I was sure.

Nothing had ever happened to me personally, but I had more than a few close calls. The professor's actions had caused all of that to come rushing back to me, leaving a metallic taste in my mouth, my stomach twisting violently.

Leonard rolled his eyes, like I was completely out of line. "Ignore her, she's just being self absorbed."

I aimed my glare at him next, my fists clenching at my sides. "You know what, Leonard? Fuck you!"

Leonard glanced at me with that bored expression of his before turning to examine his finger nails. "No thanks. You're not my type."

I rolled my eyes. "That's not what I meant," I hissed. "And you know it. Jackass."

He smirked. I knew he was saying and doing shit just to get to me, and it made it all the more irritating that I was letting it happen. "I'm out of here."

I started to storm off, only to be stopped by Sara a moment later. Whirling around, I yanked my arm away from the other blonde woman ready to chew her out too, only she spoke up first. "Don't move. Someone's watching us."

"What?" That got everyone's attention. I glanced around the area, trying to find whoever Sara had spotted; but I couldn't see anyone in the parking lot save for our group.

Still, Sara was squinting, slowly moving her eyes over the surrounding area, as though she were trying to see some invisible foe.

The others stood tensely, hands itching for their weapons if they had any. My heart was pounding, and my palms were growing hot as I got ready to activate my abilities. (Though I had no idea how to use them for combat.)

Sara was suddenly thrown across the pavement as a woman appeared, seemingly popping out of thin air.

The blonde grabbed the other woman by the shoulders, quickly shoving her to the ground and yanking a knife out from the sleeve of her shirt. Sara tossed the knife at the other woman, only for her to disappear and reappear a moment later behind Sara.

My eyes widened as I realized why the mystery woman seemed like she had appeared out of thin air. It was because she had appeared out of thin air. She was a teleporter.

Sara didn't seem very off put by that though. She just whipped around, swinging her fist right into the other woman's gut; the woman grabbed her arm swinging her around and slamming her into the concrete.

Kendra frowned, glancing at the other's uncertainly. "Should we help her?"

Ray shook his head, looking absolutely terrified of the idea. "Not unless you want both of them to kill you," he mumbled. It sounded like he was speaking from experience.

I got Leonard and Mick exchanging impressed looks; I rolled my eyes. Boys could be so childish sometimes.

The mystery woman jumped on top of Sara, holding her down by the shoulders. "Looks like you're out of practice assassin."

Sara kicked the woman in stomach and sent her tumbling backwards before jumping on top of her and holding her down. "Or not," the mystery woman smirked. She teleported away from Sara, appearing a few feet away, standing in front of our group.

Sara stood up, as everyone else prepared for a fight. Now that the new comer wasn't moving around so much I got a good look at her.

She was an Asian woman with muscular biceps. Her thick, midnight hair was swooped back over the top of her head, being held back by a thin hair tie. Lose strands escaped after the little fight with Sara, slapping against her face in the wind.

The woman looped her thumbs through the belt buckles of her leather pants, sending us a smug smirk. She planted one booted foot in front of her, breathing slightly heavily from the fight. "This group is gonna be fun," she snickered to herself. "I can tell."

Sara glared at her, her own breath hitched a bit too. "Who the hell are you?"

I eyed the woman cautiously, as her smirk widened. She sort of reminded me a bit of Ainsley, except this woman seemed a bit too sure of herself for my liking. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything Rip came walking out from the building behind her.

"She's called the Waverider," he announced. "She'll be helping us on our mission."

The woman, the Wavrider apparently, nodded in agreement. She sent a wink at Sara. "Because no time traveling team is complete without a bad ass Asian lesbian."

Hunter groaned, mumbling, "Oh god…" He turned and gave Waverider a stern look. "And I thought I told you the recruits aren't toys! You can't play with them!"

Waverider shrugged, not even remotely apologetic. "I wanted to see what they could do."

"Then, why were you only attacking me?" Sara huffed.

Waverider smirked. "'Cause you're hot." She sent another wink at her, prompting Sara to roll her eyes and Rip to let out an annoyed groan. "But don't worry I'll test the rest of y'all later."

"No you won't!" Rip said quickly. "And you're married! Stop flirting."

Waverider rolled her eyes. She folded her arms over her chest, completely unmoved by Rip's words. "Gideon has expressed multiple times that she's perfectly fine with this being an open relationship!"

Mick laughed loudly. "Three way. That's hot." I rolled my eyes, as Sara smacked him on the back of the head. (He deserved it for that comment.)

"Ugh," Rip sighed. "Speaking of Gideon…she's waiting for us. We should get going."

Leonard glanced over him, already annoyed at the other man. "I ain't footin' it anywhere."

"You don't have to." Waverider grinned deviously. She crouched down, placing her hand on the ground. "Hold on tight, ladies and gents."

I looked around at the others to see if they knew what the hell was going on, but they looked just as confused as I was. There wasn't time to ask questions, though.

The wind seemingly picked up. Next to me, Ray raised his arm, frowning at his watch confusedly as the hands spun around the face wildly. Sara's hair flew into her face, courtesy of the rapidly increasing wind; Kendra squinted as dust started getting tossed up around us.

I held up my hand to shield my eyes. What the hell was going on? I stumbled, like someone was pushing me from behind. Looking around, I tried to calm my racing heart that had been pounding against my rib cage since Waverider and Rip had showed up.

We were still in the parking lot of the paper company. Our bags and suit cases were still where we had left them, and Jax was still slumped over in Stein's car.

But the parking lot and building had changed significantly. The pavement had been replaced with the fresh cement, and the building had been remolded, shiny new glass paneling up and down the walls.

There were also a lot more cars in the parking spaces than there had been a moment before, and the sky had cleared up a great deal. I looked at Waverider. "What just –"

Before I could finish Jax stirred. He took a quick look around, realized he wasn't wherever he was supposed to be, and let out a cry of, "What the –" He stumbled out of the car, eyes wide.

Stein gave the younger man a wry grin. "Jefferson, I'm so glad you're awake. I didn't want you to miss this."

Jax turned and glared at the older man. "Where the hell are we?"

Stein stuttered awkwardly at his furious tone. "Well, I um, assumed we must have just time traveled." I glanced around again at the way the scenery had changed. He was right. The surrounding area was much newer and much more tech orientated. There was a tube in the distance that sort of looked like one of those transportation tubes from Futurama.

"What?" Jax's glare deepened, as he folded his arms over his chest in a huff.

Waverider nodded. She spun in a circle, waving her arms over the scenery around us. "Yup. Legends, welcome to the year 2166."


	3. We Visit an Old Guy on His Death Bed...

Sara flashed the professor a sly smirk, her own hands on her hips. "Good luck explaining this one."

"I did him a favor," Stein said. I shuddered at those words. That was always the thing someone said right before the unspeakable happened. I found myself inching away from Stein, my stomach practically dragging on the ground every time I moved.

"He doesn't look all that grateful," Leonard teased. There was amusement in his voice, which made me scoff a little. I couldn't believe the others were making light of this.

Jax ignored them and turned to Rip. "Hey! You, Rip Hunter, I wanna go home!"

Waverider flashed an odd glance at Rip, a small smirk playing at her lips. "Rip?" Her reaction confused me, but I didn't have time to question it before Rip was rushing the conversation forward.

"Hate to break it to you, but 2016 ended one hundred-fifty years ago," he told Jax.

"So, take me back," Jax huffed.

"I could," Waverider said. "But that would take time. Plus, I don't really feel like it. Sorry, bro."

Jax gave her an irritated look, but before he could say anything else Rip was moving on again. The Englishman glanced at Waverider. "Look, can you just get us inside?"

She smirked back at him again, looping one thumb through her belt buckle. "Yeah, sure. Whatever you say...Rip." Something about her voice sounded off as she said his name, a hint of amusement hidden behind her words that made absolutely no sense.

She whirled around, strutting towards the building at the end of the lot. "Leave your bags, someone will come take them to your rooms."

We followed her, even Jax who did not look very happy about it. I made sure to stay as far away from the professor as I could get, keeping an eye on Jax, too. After learning that the kid had been drugged and brought here against his will I didn't trust the older man. I figured someone had to watch out for him, and it didn't look like anyone else was going to do it.

"Our rooms?" Kendra asked.

"Well, yeah. Y'all gotta sleep somewhere don't cha?" Waverider snorted, like that made perfect sense. She pushed the doors open, revealing the busy workers of the paper company. Boxes and giant rolls of paper were stacked along the walls, the employees rushing around to sort them, sweeping and mopping and doing whatever else paper companies did.

Leonard raised an eyebrow, shooting a skeptical look at Waverider and Rip. "We're shacking up in a warehouse?"

Rip shook his head. He leaned against one of the racks as we came to a stop at a desk in the center of the room. "The paper company is just a front."

"Yup. Real fun happens down stairs," Waverider put in. She leaned on the desk, polishing her nails against her shirt. I wasn't sure what she was waiting for until a man walked up, letting out huge groan, especially when Waverider wiggled her fingers at him, a small smirk tugging at the edges of her lips. "Hi, Gary."

The man, Gary, huffed and folded his arms over himself, shaking his head vigorously. "Whatever it is, the answer is no."

Waverider pouted. "Awe, Gary. Can't ya wait until you hear what I'm gonna ask ya first?"

"Nope. Uh-uh! Not gonna happen!" Gary shook his head with even more ferocity. I glanced over at Sara, who was standing next to me, raising an eyebrow at her. She raised her hand, twirling her finger around her temple - the universal sign for: this guy is insane as hell.

Waverider puckered her lower lip out, pouting like a child. She leaned on the desk so that her feet were off the ground. "I just want the keys to the basement level."

"Lia!" Gary let out a frustrated sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Need I remind you that you are suspended for reckless behavior?"

She rolled her eyes. "Druce was totally over reacting!"

"Lia, you put tacks in his chair!"

"So? That was just a harmless prank!"

"Yeah, a harmless prank that got you suspended! One more infraction and you'll be out the door, you're not dragging me down with you! Not this time!"

Waverider, Lia apparently, shrugged, looking bored if anything. She stood up, holding a finger in the air. "Okay, one, rules are meant to be bent a little. Besides, my prank was hardly reckless behavior! Two, you don't have to physically give me the keys. Just forget to hang em up or whatever and I'll take them when you have your back turned."

Gary scoffed. "There is absolutely no way that is happening."

"Come on!" Lia begged. "It's not like it's the first time you left the keys out!" When he didn't budge, she groaned, rolling around on the desk childishly. "You know I could just stop time and take them regardless, right? I'm asking out of politeness."

Gary rolled his eyes, muttering curses under his breath. "Fine!" he sighed loudly before mumbling under his breath again. Something along the lines of, "This woman is so going to get me fired some day..."

He reached into his front pocket before dropping a set of keys on top of the desk and turning around to leave, throwing a glare at Waverider as he went. "You owe me for this!"

"Thanks, Gary! You're a real peach!" Lia called after him.

"Yeah, yeah," he called back. "You're just lucky you ran into me and not Ava." She waved at his back as he rounded the corner before reaching over and grabbing the keys from the desk. Waverider turned and grinned at the rest of us. "When it comes to bending the rules, Gary Green is all the man you need."

"Cute," Sara commented sarcastically as we started walking again. Waverider and Rip lead us to the elevator in the back of the warehouse.

"So, where exactly are we?" Kendra asked, as Lia pressed the down arrow to the elevator. "Who are you people?"

We all crowded into the elevator as Lia explained to us. "We're called the Time Masters." She leaned over once the doors were closed, opening a secret hatch in the wall and revealing a hidden key slot; she put the keys she'd coerced from Gary in the slot and turned them.

Immediately, the elevator started moving downwards. "This is the Time Bureau. We stop time anomalies and defend history against time pirates, using our time couriers and other gadgets and gizmos. Basically we're a top secret spy organization...with time travel."

I snorted and leaned on the wall, eyeing her, unimpressed. "Is that like your thing, then? Slapping the word time in front of everything?"

Waverider frowned, holding out her hand like she was counting how many times she had said the word 'time' during her explanation. She shrugged. "Guess so."

Kendra rolled her eyes at that, but she didn't say anything. Ray, on the other hand, appeared to be much more positive. His eyes lit up when Lia mentioned spy organizations. "I always wanted to be a spy. Do we get G-Man disguises?"

"Hm, I think I'd rather have one of those flashy things that erase people's memories from Men in Black," I said.

"Or a grappling hook," Jax said, momentarily forgetting he was supposed to be acting huffy.

Sara shrugged indifferently. "Eh, I already have one of those. But it would be cool to get a laser pen, like James Bond."

"Ooh, yeah," Ray nodded. "Or a hover jet. Or -"

"Okay, seriously, what the hell are you people talking about?" Waverider asked, giving us all looks like we belonged in a mental asylum.

I snickered as the elevator door slid open again. Then, I gasped. Slowly, our group stepped out, looking around our new surroundings in awe.

The room was spacious, I guessed thirty feet by thirty feet. At the center of the room there was a round console with multicolored buttons around its panel, flat screen tvs hanging above it, depicting various historic events; and along the walls glowing, blue-green holographic images of maps hovered above the ground. The maps were littered with red dots, each looking like they were from various points in history.

Aligning the dark, polished floors were bright, white lights, making the room appear to be even more SciFi orientated. In the back of the room, a flight of stairs lead to multiple catwalks, each veering off in a different direction.

Kendra perked up at once, staring wide eyed, her mouth wide open. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Neither have I," Carter said slowly, spinning around to get a better look at the scenery. "And considering we have over four thousand years worth of memory that's saying something."

I blanched, looking between the two of them. "Four thousand years of memory? Really?"

Kendra shrugged. "Long story." I shrugged and turned back to the room. It really was amazing.

"It's called the bridge because it links the rest of the bunker together," Waverider explained, pointing to the catwalks.

Professor Stein glanced around the room, pushing his glasses up his nose as they slid down a bit. "With a base of operations of this size you must have quite the grew to run in."

Waverider shook her head. "Nope just you eight," she said, "me, the wife, and..." She paused, giving Hunter an odd look. "Rip." Lia made a face before shrugging. "Well, unless you count the guy's who come down and clean the place on Sundays. Other then them, we're the only ones who ever come down on this level."

I made a face. "How many other levels are there?"

"Seventeen," Lia said. "We're on the eighteenth."

"That's...a lot of rooms," Ray commented.

"Yeah, but I don't have to clean em so..." Lia shrugged.

Rip cleared his throat awkwardly. He shifted uncomfortably for a moment before speaking up. "Anyway, where is Gideon?"

Lia shrugged, walking over to the console at the center of the room to fiddle with some buttons. "Baby sitter called in today, so she's probably putting our little Jump Ship down for a nap in the parlor."

"Right," Rip nodded. "I'll get her." He walked towards one of the cat walks, only to be stopped by the Waverider, who informed him he was going the wrong way. Hunter turned and went the correct way, as according to Lia's directions.

I snorted and leaned over to Sara. "You get the feeling it's his first time down here too?" She laughed at that but otherwise didn't respond.

Kendra looked at Waverider with a frown. "Jump Ship?"

Lia nodded, not looking up from what she was doing. She seemed to he a totally different person now, hyper focused on her work. "Our son. Mathew. It's a nickname." Her voice was more monotone than it had been a few minutes ago, as if she wasn't really into the conversation.

Ray tilted his head to the side at her distant tone. He exchanged looks with Carter and Professor Stein. "Oh, uh, you guys have kids? That's cool."

"Mhm." Waverider absentmindedly continued whatever she'd been doing, not even remotely paying us the slightest bit of attention.

The Professor exchanged another look with Ray, both looking a bit put off but the woman's sudden cold shoulder. I couldn't blame them, really. It was a little unnerving, the way she'd gone through such a drastic change in personality, as if Lia had flipped a switch inside her brain that said 'business mode on.'

"What is it you are trying to accomplish?" the professor wondered. "Perhaps, we could be of assistance."

Waverider waved him off, still not taking her eyes away from the screen, which looked a little weird since the screens were perched up on the walls and she had to crane her neck up to see them. "Yeah, yeah, it's over there." Clearly, she hadn't really been listening to what the professor had said.

"Uh...okay?" Carter said, confused.

After a moment, the holographic maps at the back of the room flickered, switching around so that they showed an image of New Orleans. A big red dot was situated right smack dab in the center of St. Roch. Above the map, written in thick white lettering was:

Waverider smirked, as the maps lit up. "Gotcha!"

"Savage?" Kendra asked, looking skeptical.

Lia glanced at her like she thought the other woman was stupid. "What? No! Professor Aldus Boardman." She pointed to the monitor above her head, and I craned my neck back to get a look at the image that had appeared up there.

It was a picture of an old black man with salt and pepper hair and a pair of wire rimmed glasses. He was wearing a tweed jacket, much like Professor Stein, and a bow tie around his neck.

I looked back down at Lia as she continued to explain. "We couldn't locate Vandal Savage, because his movements are hidden throughout history or whatever, so I've just tracked down the next best thing: the world's only leading expert on immortal morons." Waverider gestured at Boardman's picture again.

Ray frowned. "I thought Rip said he was pretty active here and the twenty-second century."

"Huh?" Waverider looked back at him with a frown of her own. It almost seemed like she had no idea who Ray was talking about for a brief moment before a light bulb went off. "Oh, yeah. Rip. He did...say that." She cleared her throat awkwardly.

"But perhaps engaging Savage at the height of his power isn't the best strategy?" Stein said before I could question our new time traveling bestie about her odd behavior. I found that kind of annoying. (What? I liked to pry.)

Lia nodded, seeming normal again. She pointed at the professor like he made an excellent point. "Exactly. Hence, the nerd." She pointed at Boardman's picture again.

I shrugged, momentarily forgetting about her odd behavior concerning Hunter, turning to the hawks instead. "Hey, didn't you guys say you were from St. Roch?"

Carter nodded. "We did, yeah."

"We've also seen Boardman before," Kendra said. "Well, a video of him anyway."

"In Central City," Carter added. "When the Flash and Green Arrow were helping us fight Savage." I gave my own curt nod in response to that. I was still curious about who the Flash and Green Arrow were, and I made a mental note to demand answers from the hawk lovers later. (Right now probably wasn't the right time for that.)

"Sounds like a drag," Mick commented.

Kendra snorted bitterly. "Well, he's killed us over two hundred times so...yeah." I winced in sympathy. That had to be rough; I couldn't imagine going through losing the love of my life once, never mind over two hundred times. (Not that I had ever really been in love before.) It must have been so nerve wracking for them.

Voices and foot steps drew my attention back to the catwalks. Two people were approaching us; I recognized one of them as Rip, but the other person was unfamiliar. She was a gorgeous, white, brunette woman, long hair falling over her shoulders and back. The woman was dressed in a white blouse, a grey blazer thrown over it, unprofessionally unbuttoned. She wasn't wearing any shoes, just blue socks, and her pants were a pair of sweat pants, which was very unprofessional. Her brown eyes had a sort of spunk to them, a mischievous gleam if I ever saw one. There was a small smirk playing at her lips, as she spoke with Hunter. I guessed she must have been Gideon.

"...They're all from 2016," Rip was saying.

"Ah," Gideon said, a laugh trying to escape as she spoke. "The early second millennium A.D., the golden age of gasoline engines, online pornography, and those silly little smart phones." Her accent was British, like Rip's, though hers was slightly lighter than his, as if she had spent a great deal of her time in America as well as England.

She eyed us, as the two reached the end of the platform and met us at the console. Her devious grin was a bit off putting, and I found myself shrinking back a bit. "Well, then, this should be fun."

"That's what I said, too," Lia snickered. She leaned over, planting a kiss on Gideon's lips, which I found a bit odd considering she had just been flirting with Sara not too long ago. (Then, again, she had said that they were in an open relationship.)

When the two pulled apart, Rip glanced over at the maps and the picture of Boardman hanging over the console. "So, you filled them in?" He nodded at us.

Waverider nodded. She let out a yawn, wrapping an arm around Gideon as she looked back at the British man. "And y'all better hurry. In less than twenty-four hours Professor Boardman is gonna kick the bucket. I'd come with, but using my powers with multiple people always takes a lot out of me, so I think I'll join little Matty for a nap instead."

I blinked. "Wait. You mean he's going to die?" Waverider only shrugged indifferently in return. I frowned, unsettled by that news.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one either. Ray's eyes widened with concern, as he looked between the three time travelers. "What's the point in cutting it so close?"

Professor Stein spoke up for them. (Evidently, he had studied a lot of time traveling in his days, which was helpful for putting the rest of us dummies in our place.) "Because if he's destined to die then his impact to the future will be minimal. How brilliant!"

That last comment did little to nothing to make me develop any sort of trust for the man. I shook my head, taking a step further away from the older man. Kendra scoffed herself, putting in her own comment. "And depressing. How does he die?"

The three time travelers shrugged, each looking absolutely clueless. Gideon was the one who spoke up, though. "Unknown causes?" she guessed.

Rip turned to Sara, Leonard, and Mick, like Boardman's life didn't really matter to him at all. I found that a bit insensitive, but then again I didn't really know the guy either. Maybe he was a total douche and deserved what was coming to him. Who knew? "You three, feel free to make yourselves comfortable back here, while the rest of us go pay Professor Boardman a little visit."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Mick protested. "Your benching us?" I didn't think he actually gave two shits about the mission or Boardman's life. In fact, I was willing to bet money that he did not. He was probably just mildly upset that he wouldn't be able to steal anything from the '70s. Same with Leonard for that matter.

Leonard and Sara stood behind Mick, arms folded in a huff and deep frowns on their faces. The latter spoke up, her voice rigged with rage. (I guess she didn't appreciate being side lined any more than the petty thieves.) "I thought we were a team."

Rip shrugged, not seeming to pick up on the fact that the trio was extremely pissy with him. "The mission doesn't require your specific skill set...yet." That last part was added hastily, as if he were afraid that they'd leave if he didn't make that one specific point abundantly clear.

Leonard nodded slowly, as Rip's worries came into the light. "Meaning you don't want anyone killed, maimed, or robbed."

"Exactly," Rip said.

I thought he'd be offended, but instead he just shrugged and said, "Good thing I swiped those cards off that guy upstairs then." He pulled out a deck of poker card from the sleeve of his jacket. "Took his wallet too, but that's besides the point." I rolled my eyes. Not even five minutes and he was already stealing everything he could get his sticky hands on. I made another mental note to keep a hand on my own wallet, lest he get tempted to take that too. (I didn't really have anything worth taking in there, but one could never be too careful, could they?)

Ray made a face at him. I guess he must have disapproved of Leonard's behavior as much as I did. "Really? We're trying to save the world, and you're lifting wallets?"

Mick shot the brown eyed man an annoyed look for that comment, and Leonard gave an eye roll of his own. "No, your trying to save the world," he corrected, pointing at Ray. "We're trying to rob stupid people throughout history."

"Maybe you should be robbing yourself, then," I muttered.

Leonard glared at me, but before he got the chance to retort, Sara snatched the cards away from him and examined them with a bored expression. "Anyway, I guess we can play with these. Too bad we don't have any booze, though."

Gideon pointed at the ceiling, that mischievous smirk of hers widening a bit. "On the twelfth level there's a bar in the lounge."

Mick's eyes lit up, and he immediately turned on his heels, heading back for the elevator. He called for the other two over his shoulder. "What are you waitin' for? Let's go!" Sara and Leonard shrugged, following behind him.

Once they had disappeared inside the elevator, Waverider let out another yawn before reaching over to the console and handing a metal watch to her wife. "Here's the time courier, babe. See you later." She kissed Gideon's cheek before disappearing down the platform in the middle of the stairwell.

Gideon turned to the rest of us, still smirking like she was up to no good. She held up the watch, the time courier apparently, her thumb. "Shall we?"


	4. ...And Fight Boba Fett and Darth Nihilus

The portal opened up like a pair of sliding doors at the entrance of Walmart, a window at the center, leading to a whole new place. It was a college campus with bright, brown tiles of concrete and a building with more windows than I cared to count.

I spotted a couple of students, decked out in wild '70s style get ups that didn't do much except make me cringe – bright white jeans, multicolored skirts and headbands. One of the guys even had an afro.

Stepping through the portal was like walking under a water fall. That cold sensation of heavy water pouring down on you all at once. I gasped, taken a back. I half expected my clothes to be drenched on the other side, but when I came through I was completely dry. Gideon flashed the other newbies and me a knowing grin. "It takes some getting used to."

Ray quickly recovered. He pranced forward giddily, grinning from ear to ear, turning around in a complete circle as we walked. "This is unbelievable! 1975!"

I shook my head, still not completely sure I'd managed to wrap my head around the idea myself. This felt like a dream. I mean, time travel? How could any of this possibly be real? It shouldn't have been. It should have just been some made up science fiction nonsense that only hard core nerds really cared about… yet there I was, walking up the pathway of a college building in 1975.

Professor Stein glanced around, a look of utter amazement dancing in his eyes. He raised his hands slightly as he spoke, dramatizing his words a bit. "Imagine all the wondrous applications of this technology – a chance to witness the construction of the pyramids –" Kendra and Carter flashed him a bored expression at this example, like maybe they had already seen it and it wasn't all it was chalked up to be. "—the end of the dinosaurs."

I still wasn't sure about him, but I had to admit he had a point. There were so many places in time that I wouldn't mind visiting. The roaring '20s, the industrial revolution, the Renaissance… the list went on.

Gideon shrugged, eyeing the man with the afro distastefully as we passed by him. "I've never been to 1975. It's rather…" She tilted her head from side to side, searching for a word that was far less rude than what she wanted to say. "Colorful."

Rip nodded in agreement. (Jax had chosen to stay behind with the other three, still understandably pissed that he'd been brought along against his will.) He looked a bit unsettled when a young woman in a tassel infested outfit stopped near him, smirking with an expression that read: I am totally higher than a kite right now dudes!

The woman looked us all over, grinning brighter and brighter as she took our outfits in. "Wow, you guys are really far out!" Then, she moved on. To this day, I have no idea whether being 'far out' is a good thing or bad one.

Kendra shook her head as she watched the obviously high woman walk off. We ascended a flight of stairs and entered the building; and she asked, "So, where can we find Professor Boardman?"

Gideon answered her without even looking back. "In his lecture hall."

It didn't take long to find. At least not with Gideon leading the way. She walked through the halls like she owned the school and knew every inch of the building's layout by heart. We walked down the halls, made two lefts, and arrived at our destination, turning into the room on the right.

It was a large room, filled wall to wall with desks. Windows on either side filled the place with enough sunlight that there was no need for fluorescent lights on the ceiling. In the back there was a chalk board and a desk, and on the other side of the room sat a mountain of books and a small projector, maps and globes placed all over the place. I guessed he must have been a history teacher.

Our group slowly approached the desk at the back of the room, where there was a man who looked suspiciously like Boardman laying face down on the surface. My stomach lurched, and my heart began racing.

Rip nocked on the wall to get his attention, but he didn't budge. I bit my lip, glancing away from the body, my palms sweating uncontrollably. My heart was banging against my rib cage, begging for escape, and I was pretty sure my guts were plotting my murder the way they were twisting around inside me.

Next to me Kendra whimpered slightly. "Oh no…we're too late…"

"Oh god don't say that," I murmured. It sounds stupid, considering I signed up for a dangerous mission in which bodies would undoubtedly be dropped, but I couldn't handle corpses. I wasn't sure what it was. All I knew was that every time someone even so much as mentioned a dead body I'd faint or at the very least throw up all over my seventh grade teacher's brand new pair of very expensive shoes.

Ray frowned at me. "Hey, are you okay? You look like you're going to be sick."

Boardman let out a soft snore before sitting up, disgruntled. I yelped in surprise at the sudden movement, covering my mouth in embarrassment when everyone looked at me. After a second I was breathing normally again, and my hands had un-clamed.

Boardman looked around at all of us. "I – uhm – sorry…" He trailed off as his eyes landed on Kendra and Carter. "You. Both of you…"

"You know who we are?" Carter and Kendra exchanged looks. I looked between the two of them and Boardman. It didn't seem like either of them had a clue as to who he was, but Boardman was very adamant that he knew them.

He spoke slowly, rising from his chair dramatically. There was a look on his face like he was afraid he was just dreaming. "My whole life I've been studying you, ever since I was a child when I first heard the story of priestess Chay-Ara –" He nodded at Kendra. "— and Prince Khufu." He nodded at Carter, coming to a stop directly in front of the hawk duo. (So, that's how they knew the construction of the pyramid's was boring. They really had lived through it.) "I hoped and prayed this day might come."

Involuntarily, I found myself taking an uneasy step back. Call me a wuss, but the guy was setting off some major red flags. It was one thing to be an obsessive fanboy, but I was pretty sure he had crossed the line and treaded into creepy stalker territory.

I must have been completely insane, though. No one else seemed even remotely concerned about it. (Then again no one cared about Professor Stein drugging and kidnapping Jax either…) Rip shrugged. "Well, I guess we've come to the right place."

Boardman glanced at him, confused. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

Gideon spoke up, stepping in between the two men in a hurry. She flashed Boardman an obviously fake grin. "Fellow historians… of sorts. We're here to discuss another passion of yours: Vandal Savage."

A knowing look passed over Boardman's face. He glanced, again, at Carter and Kendra. His next words left me even more confused than before. "There's no way of telling your story without telling his also."

He motioned for us to follow him, and he lead us to the other side of the lecture hall and over to a large stack of books. Boardman bent over and blew the dust of the top of the pile before picking up one particularly large book. "Vandal Savage was an Egyptian priest, secretly in love with a priestess." He nodded at Kendra. "You…or rather you in your first life."

I remembered Kendra and Carter mentioning something about reincarnation last night on the roof, when Rip asked everyone to join his cause. Did that mean Savage, Carter, and Kendra had all been lived through the past four thousand years together? Ugh, my head was spinning…

Kendra somehow seemed just as stunned as I was, maybe even more. Boardman flipped through the book as he continued talking. "But you were in love with another…Prince Khufu. Savage, or Hath-Set as he was then known, learned of your affair and was consumed with jealous rage, which drove him to murder you both."

My eyes widened with surprise at that. I glanced at Kendra and Carter, and they were both sharing a saddened look, maybe recalling the events quite clearly. (I doubted being murdered was something one forgot easily anyway.) That must have been brutal…

Boardman went on, "He prayed to the hawk god Horus that the objects of his hate would suffer for an eternity. Chay-Ara had a prayer of her own, that Horus would protect them forever, but another life was bound to theirs by accident."

Kendra shifted her weight from football to foot, speaking softly. "Savage's. That's why he wants us both dead."

My heart sank at her words. That was such an impossible situation. I wondered how they managed to deal with it.

Boardman nodded at her, closing the book and setting it down. "My theory is that the three of you were exposed to the same radiation by meteorites." I wasn't sure how exactly one came to such an outrageous and, frankly, crazy, claim, but I wasn't a genius college professor so I kept my mouth shut and let them talk.

"We all share the same power," Kendra said.

"And every time he kills you it passes on to him," Boardman said. "That's what maintains his immortality."

Stein shook his head, butting into the conversation. "That's impossible."

The grey haired professor's intrusion prompted Ray to do the same. He said, "Unless the meteorites contained a mutative element like the Particle Accelerator that caused your powers and Sky's."

I had no idea what qualified as a mutative element, nor did I know exactly how Ray knew I had powers, considering I'd barely even spoken to him since arriving at the bunker in 2166. But I decided it would be better if I didn't question that at the moment.

Stein still looked skeptical, turning back to Boardman. "Without evidence, you're asking me to take you at your word."

Boardman retaliated with a shake of his own head. "It's not my word." He pointed at the hawk duo. "It's theirs." The bow tie clad professor turned to them earnestly. "But you still don't remember me do you?"

Carter and Kendra exchanged a tense look. It was clear what the answer was, a big fat no. Carter shrugged. "We knew you in our past lives?" I guess that would have explained all the creepy stalking.

Boardman calmly walked over to one of the shelves that held a stack of maps. He lifted up a few of them and pulled out a small picture from underneath them. "You told me your entire stories, through the ages, but when I first knew you it was after World War I, and your name's were Joe and Edith…Edith Boardman."

I choked on the air, and Kendra blinked at the professor while Carter just stared at him, dumbfounded.

Kendra shook her head, putting a hand on her forehead. "Wait. I – we were related?" She let out a soft sigh, flashing him a guilty smile. "I…don't remember you. I'm sorry…"

"Don't be. You always warned me that if I ran into you in your next life you might not remember me." Boardman handed her the picture. "That's us. At the World's Fair...You're just as beautiful as I remember…" Carter glanced over her shoulder to look at it, and being the nosy piece of garbage that I am I did the same.

The image was black and white, a man and woman standing in front of a Ferris Wheel with a small boy between them. The two adults was obviously Carter and Kendra, though her hair was done up in a bob and he had a lot more facial hair. I guessed the boy must have been Boardman which made the two hawks…

I gasped, realizing how Boardman was related to them a second before the professor confirmed it himself. "Mother."

Kendra knit her brows together, her mouth parting just a bit as she stared back at Boardman. Carter shared a look with her, looking just as stunned as she did.

Behind them, Gideon was biting her fingernail, looking bored. She raised her eyes at Rip, smirking a little. He rolled his eyes back at her, just seeming impatient if anything. Ray and Stein were just awkwardly fiddling with themselves.

It did feel a bit like we were intruding. This probably should have been a private conversation between the three of them, but I guess I couldn't blame the guy for getting excited about seeing his parents after fifty-seven years.

Carter looked up at him slowly. "How old were you when –"

"You two were murdered?" Boardman cut him off bluntly. "Ten."

As if their story couldn't get any more heart breaking. They'd had a kid, one they couldn't even remember, and were forced to leave him alone and stranded at just ten years old…

"You always told me to be careful," Boardman said. "To keep moving, always one step ahead of Savage." He paused for a moment, sighing sadly. "But after tracking you for thousands of years he'd gotten good. He found us in a fleabag motel in North Carolina. You hid me in the closet and made me promise, no matter what I heard, I would stay put… And I did."

For a moment there was something in Rip's eyes, something almost empathetic, like maybe he could relate somehow… Then, the look was gone and he was back to being passive and monotone. "Sorry to interrupt your…family time, but we were hoping you could help give us an idea as to Savage's present whereabouts?"

Boardman, in a relentless effort to avoid giving a straight answer, you know the way teachers do, turned and fired up the projector sitting near by.

As he spoke, he flipped through images if history, each with Savage's face blown up and surrounded by a red circle."He hides in the shadows, never drawing too much attention to himself. In every life time he places himself near the seat of power, sowing the seeds of destruction. Who remembers the name of the man who whispered in the ear of Gavrilo Princip and convinced him to start World War I?"

I had no clue who Princip was, nor how he had started the first World War (I had never been very good in history), never mind the name of the man who allegedly whispered in his ear. (Though, with the way the conversation was going, I guessed the latter was probably Savage.)

Ray made a face, as he watched Boardman flick through the images. "Why? What does he gain from this?"

"While the world is focused on destroying itself the less likely it is to notice an immortal psychopath in its midst," Stein said.

"With the ultimate goal of subjugating the entire planet," Boardman added.

Rip took a step forward in one last attempt to get a proper answer from the other man. "Vandal Savage killed your parents. Something tells me you know where to find him."

Boardman looked back at him seriously. "I have…an educated guess." He rummaged through his junk pile for a little while longer before coming back up with a small leather bond book. He handed it to Rip. "This should provide you with everything you need." Hunter took it with a nod of thanks, stuffing it inside his trench coat.

Kendra was about to say something, when Waverider came sprinting into the room, looking out of breath. She leaned over, trying to catch her breath. "Gideon," she heaved out. "You have to go! Now!"

Gideon held up her hands in an effort to calm her frantic wife while the rest of us looked on with surprise. "What happened?"

"Uh. Well, long story short, apparently Lance, Rory, and Snart started a bar fight when they went up to level twelve for their booze," Lia said in a rushed tone. "And now Druce knows everything. Pilgrim and Chronos are on their way here to drag all of you to the Vanishing Point."

I couldn't stop the laugh that escaped me. Chronos and Pilgrim? What sort of names were those? Whoever they had hired to name them should have been fired.

No one paid me any attention, though. Everyone was too focused on Gideon, who visibly winced at Lia's words. She turned to a confused Boardman, saying, "We really do have to go. Sorry!" She ran out of the room, Lia at her heels.

I followed behind with the others. Carter and Kendra were right behind Lia and Gideon. "Wait, you said he was going to die," Kendra called out to them. "We can't just leave him. He's our son."

"Are either of you a time master? No. We are, making discrete alterations to the time line is what we do. So –" Lia started, only to be interrupted by Carter.

"Good for you." He stepped in front of her, blocking her path. Lia huffed, putting her hands on her hips; Carter retaliated by folding his arms in front of his chest. "We're not going anywhere without our son."

Lia and Gideon exchanged looks, the former letting out a long, irritated sigh. I had to agree. If things were really as urgent as they said, we didn't really have the time for this. And as much as I hated the idea of leaving innocent people to die, I doubted there was much we could do to stop his death, if it was his fate, anyway.

Gideon and Waverider seemed to have a brief, silent argument. One that the latter had apparently lost, judging from the way she tossed her hands in the air. Gideon gave the hawk duo a serious look. "Do you have any idea what happens when you remove someone who's destined to die from history?"

"Well, uh, no…" Kendra admitted with a frown. "But –"

"Neither do I," Gideon said. "Let's find out."

Kendra broke out into a small grin. "Really?"

Gideon nodded, ushering the hawks back towards Boardman's office. "Yes, yes. Now hurry up before I change my mind."

The pair ran off to get their son. Lia bounced on the balls of her feet. She glanced at her wrist impatiently, even though she wasn't wearing a watch. "We don't have time for this. They'll be here any min –"

Her sentence was cut off by a green laser blast. The laser flew by her ear, slamming into the wall behind her, leaving a dark black singe mark.

I jumped. What the fuck was that? I turned in the direction the laser had come from with wide eyes. Standing at the end of the hall were two figures, a male and female, clad in metal suits.

The male's armor was thick, bulky, not unlike Ray's Atom suit. Though, this man's attire was all black. His boots were thick combat boots, where I imagined he had stashed more than a few sharp objects. Around his waist was a utility belt full of explosives; his helmet hid his facial features. In his hand he was holding a massive gun.

The woman was dressed similarly, only her armor was a bit lighter – a simple breast plate and padded shoulders. Her white and red mask covered her face but left her long dark hair waving behind her like a cape. In her hand, she was twirling a very sharp looking knife.

I back away, a foreboding sense washing over him. Gideon and Lia exchanged nervous looks. Waverider glanced at the male figure. "Hey, Chronos." She nodded curtly at the woman. "Pilgrim."

"No time for hi's," the woman, Pilgrim, said. Her voice was an octave lower than a female's voice generally was, thanks to the voice modulator in her mask. It was bone chilling, like a whip, slapping against the skin of some poor unfortunate soul.

Chronos was the one who had me shuddering, though. His voice made my head feel like it was trapped in a vice, squeezing my brain right out of my skull. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Turn yourselves in or we'll bring you in, broken and bruised," Pilgrim said, raising her knife a little higher.

Even with the over dramatic attitudes, stupid get ups, and moronic codenames, they were pretty frightening. I got the feeling they could easily take us. I also got the feeling we were about to engage in combat with them. Lovely.

"You know that's very rude," Lia said. "Here I was, just trying to have a friendly conversation and you two go and threaten us for no reason at all. For shame."

Pilgrim tossed her knife at her head, but before it could hit her Waverider teleported out of the way, appearing behind the other woman after a split second, leaving Pilgrim's knife to get lodged in the wall next to the singe mark from the laser.

Rip and Gideon each retrieved a duster and revolver – Rip's blue, while Gideon's was red – from their pockets. The pair engaged in a shoot off with Chronos, who had taken to hiding behind one wall for cover.

I ducked back into Boardman's office with Professor Stein and Ray. Gideon and Rip stood across from us, using the door to the classroom as their own cover.

Boardman and the hawks crouched next to us. Boardman's eyes widened, and he asked, "Are those laser guns?" Which was annoying, because the answer was kind of obvious.

Pilgrim and Waverider were going back and forth, throwing punches at one another. Pilgrim had Lia pinned to the wall, pressing her forearm against her throat; Waverider teleported out from under her, appearing behind her again and sending a hard punch to the back of her head.

Pilgrim toppled over with a loud cry, which brought Chronos' attention to her. He tossed one of his explosives at Waverider before turning back and sending a volley of green lasers our way.

"Look out!" I called to Lia, ducking behind the wall. It was pretty useless, though. The little bomb exploded, and Lia was sent flying across the room. When she hit the floor, she was knocked unconscious.

"No!" Gideon shouted. She started firing more rapidly at Chronos and Pilgrim, but none of her shots landed. Pilgrim somehow even managed to yank her knife from the wall without so much as being grazed by Gideon's gun.

Rip turned to Ray urgently. "Dr. Palmer, please tell me –"

"I didn't leave my suit back at the bunker?" Ray finished. "Uh, okay, but I'd be lying."

I stared at him. "Why the hell would you leave it behind?"

Ray shrugged. "In my defense, I wasn't expecting to meet Boba Fett and Darth Nihilus." He gestured at the Pilgrim and Chronos. I rolled my eyes at the Star Wars references.

"Darth Nihilus was a guy," I told him.

"Yeah, but her mask is red and white just like –"

"Perhaps, you two would like to continue this conversation when we aren't being shot at?" Rip suggested, firing a round at Chronos and Pilgrim before ducking behind the wall again. He was shooting a deadly glare at us in the process.

"Right. Sorry…" Ray said, ducking to avoid another shot from Chronos.

Gideon fired a round, before ducking back into hiding. "These things will lose charge soon."

"Why don't we just use your watch things to escape?" I asked.

"Time courier," Gideon told me. "And aside from the fact that it will mean leaving my wife? They only open portals in specific places, the same place it was first opened."

"In other words we have to open it outside on the campus," Carter said.

"You know, that seems like a major design flaw," Kendra put in.

I nodded, my stomach twisting in my gut. Unless we somehow miraculously managed to get past these two freaks, we were trapped.

Kendra and Carter swooped out from hiding, each attacking Pilgrim and Chronos. The hawk duo managed to throw our attackers back a few feet, but they quickly recovered; and Pilgrim had sliced Kendra's arm in the process.

Kendra stumbled back, wincing in pain. Carter grabbed her quickly and flew her back to the rest of us. While, Chronos and Pilgrim were down, Gideon ran forward to pull her own wife to safety.

Stein glanced over at me, as Kendra slumped against the wall next to us, holding her arm and wincing in pain. Carter and Boardman were too busy making sure she didn't bleed out to be much use in the fight. "Without Jefferson, my abilities as Firestorm are out of the question. Raymond doesn't his suit, and Mr. Hunter and Gideon's weapons are about to lose charge. Lia is out of commission, as are Miss Saunders and Mr. Hall it would seem."

I stared at him, not sure if I was liking where I thought this was going. "And?"

"And perhaps, you might have something that could be of use?" he said. "You have heat based powers, don't you?"

"Uh, yes?" I didn't even want to know how he knew that. He'd already admitted to being someone who deemed it okay to drug kids to get what they wanted, it wouldn't surprise me if he were a stalker too.

"It's day light out. Perhaps, if you could harness some of the sun's heat –"

"Then, she can blast them away," Ray finished. "Great idea, professor."

"Yeah." I nodded slowly, jumping when one of Chronos' lasers hit the wall next to me. Normally, I didn't take suggestions from possible stalkers, but at this point I was willing to try anything. There was just one problem. "I don't know how to do that."

Ray shrugged. He made a thrusting motion with his hand. "Just, like, thrust your hand out or something."

I rolled my eyes. "Or something. Yeah, real scientific, man." But I found myself turning to the window at the other end of the hall anyway.

It was kind of hard to focus with Gideon and Rip going back and forth with Chronos, especially when Pilgrim began tossing her knives at us too and when Rip started shouting at me to do something.

I did my best to tune it all out, but I had never been in an actual fight before. Not like this, anyway. So, the only thought running through my head was: I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die…

Turning back to Ray and Stein, I shook my head. I couldn't do this. My lungs were tightening in my rib cage, and my breathing became rigid as panic settled in. We were all going to die, and it was going to be all my fault.

Simultaneously, Chronos tossed another explosive our way, and Rip and Gideon's guns ran out of charge. Pilgrim pressed the detonator for Chronos' bomb, and then all at once everything went dark.


	5. In which I Learn My Lesson

In the span of thirty-six hours I had found myself knocked unconscious and waking up in strange places twice.

Groaning, I peeled my eyes open, only to snap them closed again a moment later. The lights from the ceiling glared into my eye sockets, making it impossible to open my eyes for more than a millisecond, as if sharp knives were being dragged across my eyelids.

After a moment I somehow managed to groggily sit up and force my eyes open, despite the fact that my head felt like a water balloon.

For a second, my vision was blurry but once it cleared up I could see the others around me beginning to stir.

We were spread out across dark black floor, lined up in a row just like we had been on the roof when Rip had come to get us.

I groaned again, rolling over, my guts threatening to spill out. Covering my mouth with my hands, I grimaced as I caught sight of my reflexion on the floor. To put it bluntly, I looked like shit.

My hair was a rat's nest, blown in every direction so that I had a real struggle pushing it out of my face. Bags were forming under my eyes from my lack of sleep, and my clothes were all wrinkled from that, for lack of a better word, fight with Chronos and Pilgrim.

At the thought of the two masked lunatics, my head snapped up. The two lunatics in question were standing over us ominously; my stomach twisted violently again.

I'm not sure what I would have done. Maybe I would have screamed and jumped behind Sara, who seemed the most able in a fight, but before I could do anything Lia and Gideon's voices brought my attention to the back of the room.

They were standing over an oval table, which sat under a large flat screen tv hung up on the wall. A man was with them, scowling moodily.

He was dressed like a monk in a long, grey robe that covered his feet and hands. His salt and pepper hair was cropped close to his scalp; his dull, grey eyes made it very clear that this guy had a stick up his ass. I instantly disliked him.

"... Sneaking off! Using the tech without my authorization! And allowing three of them to crusade through the level twelve bar, starting a brawl!" Mr. Party Pooper was scolding Lia and Gideon.

"Hey, in my defense that guy totally deserved a broken hand!" Sara defended, jumping to her feet with a small huff.

Ray made a face, as he got to his own feet. "You broke someone's hand?"

Sara nodded. "That's generally what happens when perverts think they'll get their way with me." She shrugged, not looking remotely apologetic about it, which only added to her coolness, in my opinion.

"That's...fair, I guess," Ray said slowly.

Mr. Party Pooper glared in our direction as the rest of us got to our feet as well. Otherwise, he acted as if we weren't even in the room.

"Look, Druce," Lia said, holding her hands out slightly. "If you just let us explain --"

Ah. So, Mr. Party Pooper was their boss. I remembered hearing his name back at the fake paper company, when Lia was getting the keys from that Gary guy.

"Explain?" Druce snapped. "Explain what? How you've broken protocol? Disobeyed my direct orders and disregarded your position?"

Lia bit the inside of her cheek, folding her arms over herself. For a moment it looked like she had enough sense to stay quiet, but then she said, "You yell at me for not coming to work and then you yell at me when I show up. Make up your mind!"

Druce narrowed his eyes at her, and I lowered my head, biting my lip nervously. I was sure she was about to be in deep shit, when Gideon came to her aid. "Sir, with all due respect we had a very good reason for --"

He cut her off too. (It was starting to get on my nerves. I hated when people cut me off. As if they were just sending me a big 'fuck you, Sky!' It was the same difference when it happened to others.) "For hacking into confidential files that does not concern you or your division?"

Gideon fell silent at this. She lowered her head, clasping her hands in front of her and clearing her throat awkwardly.

Druce scowled at the pair of them, and I imagined that stick must have really been stuck up there. He took a deep, calming breath before speaking again. "I should fire the both of you for this, but I won't simply because finding replacements would be an inconvenience."

There was a long moment of silence that seemed to drag on for ages. I found myself fiddling with the sleeves of my jacket, shifting my weight from foot to foot. Silence has never been something I could handle well. I preferred being surrounded by crowds with lots of noise and partying. (Although, I hadn't actually been to a proper party since I was a teenager.)

Druce glanced at Lia and Gideon sternly. "You say you have a reason to justify your actions? Then, talk. Fast."

"Savage kills Rip and Miranda," Gideon said immediately.

At those words, Druce blanched, his eyes softening a moment later. Meanwhile, the others and I were busy exchanging confused looks. Druce opened his mouth to say something, but Jax beat him to it.

"Hold up. I thought you were Rip Hunter?" Jax pointed at the british man in the trench coat.

Up until then, he'd been standing at the back of the room quietly next to Pilgrim and Chronos, who seemed to be standing guard over him. As everyone's focus turned on him, the man who I'd thought was Captain Hunter shifted uncomfortably. He wouldn't meet anyone's eyes.

I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. Lia's odd reaction to hearing his name made sense now. But if she knew he was lying, then why did she go along with it? And what was the point in lying in the first place?

Apparently, Gideon shared the same mentality. She eyed Hunter with a soft grimace. "You told them your name was Rip? Why would you do that?"

Hunter grinned sheepishly, still not quite meeting anyone's gaze. "I panicked."

Kendra frowned, eyeing Rip -- Hunter, whatever his real name was. She was rubbing her arm lightly. Someone had bandaged it up, so she was perfectly fine from the fight earlier. "I'm confused. If you're not Rip Hunter then who are you?"

He hesitated, shifting on the balls of his feet for several counts before finally speaking up. "My name is Jonas...Jonas Hunter. Rip was my father." He shifted uncomfortably under Druce's harsh gaze. "And I don't actually work here. I just snuck in with the Ryders' help." He gestured at Gideon and Lia. "I was trying to save my parents."

I knit my eyebrows together, absentmindedly chewing on the inside of my cheek. (It was a nervous habit I'd never really gotten rid of.)

There had to be a good reason for him to lie. There must have been. Probably he thought we wouldn't help if he didn't. Or he just wanted to get our attention. But it was a little hard to rationalize his actions when I was too busy being pissed at him for them.

There was absolutely no reason for him to lie about his name! Even if he didn't really work for the Time Masters. All he had to do was say he was trying to save his family. I'm sure at least one of the heroes would have been happy to help. I know I would have been slightly more inclined to offer assistance.

My rage was only fueled further when Jax asked, "What about the legends part?"

Rip -- Jonas, whoever -- ran a nervous hand through his hair. He cleared his throat awkwardly, still not meeting anyone's eyes.

Across the room Gideon and Lia shared a strange look. Even Druce and the two bounty hunters seemed slightly put off by the question.

I narrowed my eyes at the British man, putting my hands on my hips and clenching my jaw as I came to a realization.

"Ooh, you lied about that too, didn't you?" Leonard said, evidently coming to the same conclusion.

Hunter hesitated. "Uh, not inherently..."

Sara balled her hands into fists at her side. She looked like she was ready to deck him. Not that I could blame her. It was pretty tempting just to let her have at it and beat the guy to a pulp, but then I remembered she was an assassin and that she'd probably kill him. "And what's that suppose to mean?"

I watched as she stepped forward. It didn't look any of the others were planning on stopping her from killing Jonas, not even Ray who seemed to hold the biggest moral compass of us all. I groaned inwardly, chewing harder on the inside of my cheek, wondering how I was going to manage to stop her.

Luckily, I didn't need to do anything. Lia teleported herself in between Sara and Jonas, holding her hand out to stop her advances. "Those files Gideon hacked? They were about you." Slowly, her eyes drifted over the rest of us; I let my eyes drop to the floor as her gaze met mine. "All of you."

Druce stepped forward, regarding us as if we were last weeks garbage. He swept his hand through the air, gesturing at us all. "You nine have minimal affect to the time line. In fact, your lives are the least significant in all of history. We've been keeping tabs on you, least we need to remove you from your time frame for tactical purposes."

I scoffed. Tactical purposes?? This guy just called all of us losers and admitted to spying on us?? And he as the ghoul to think we'd help him go to war? Fuck this guy!

"So, we're like the opposite of Legends," Jax nodded slowly. He rolled his eyes, slumping against the wall moodily. I couldn't blame him. Out of all of us, he had the most reason to be pissed, being dragged here against his will and all.

"Indeed," Druce said, not even sounding remotely apologetic. "Which makes the name of the operation, L.E.G.E.N.D.S., quite ironic, don't you think?"

I rolled my eyes with an annoyed grunt. "Yeah. Fuckin' hilarious, man," I grumbled.

"Only a handful of people were supposed to know about it," Druce went on, shooting Gideon a pointed look. "And they were only supposed to execute L.E.G.E.N.D.S. on my command."

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry, but I'm pretty sure no one gives a shit." This got a glare sent my way, but I was too annoyed to react to it.

"Great. So, we're not an elite team of heroes on a sanctioned mission, sent to rid the future of its most horrific bad guy," Ray sighed. "We're just a collection of nobodies who time really doesn't give a damn about."

He sounded so genuinely heartbroken and hurt, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Being a hero must have been very important to him, and these guys had just taken his dream and stomped on it right in front of him. It made my personal issues about the whole thing feel less important.

Mick huffed, angrily turning to Rip -- Jonas, whatever! His voice was just above a low, menacing growl. "Give me one good reason why we shouldn't kill you?"

Hunter hesitated, but Lia and Gideon were reaching for their weapons instantaneously. "Because if you do, you'll have to deal with us!" Lia hissed.

Druce stepped in front of them, his expression one of pure boredom. "Now, now. There's no need for violence..."

"I disagree," Mick said, reaching for his own gun. He looked like he was about to set the place ablaze until Leonard stepped in, shoving his arm back down before he could even withdraw his weapon.

Mick gave Leonard an annoyed look, but he backed down; and Gideon and Lia relaxed as well. I let out a soft sigh. Well, that was one crisis averted.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, my head pounding against my skull, as Hunter went spoke up again. "I didn't lie about the mission itself. Or the brutality and ruthlessness of Savage. Or," he added seriously, "my need for your help."

I folded my arms, scoffing again. "Why should we trust anything you say after you just admitted to lying to us?" I squinted at him. "Are you even from 2166?"

Hunter nodded quickly. "Of course I am." Then, he shifted nervously again, muttering the next part. "Sort of..."

Gideon sighed, rubbing her eyes and laughing quietly. Though, the sound lacked any indication of amusement. She mumbled something like, "You're just like your father..."

Hunter ignored this, looking over the team (if you could even call us that) desperately. "I am from 2166. As a boy. As an adult I'm from 2196."

Professor Stein stared at him, his eyes glossing over the slightest bit. "You lied to us," he said, as if that hadn't already been established.

"I needed your help," Hunter said, as if that somehow made up for everything. "You all barely said yes as it was."

"Yeah, if you wanted to gain our trust then maybe lying to us about everything wasn't the best way to go about it," I snapped. Next to me, the others were nodding along in agreement.

Gideon let out another quiet sigh. She took a step forward, eyeing me apprehensively. "Look, you all have reason to be angry. After all, no one likes being lied to."

"Yeah, no shit," I grumbled.

Ray looked back and forth between Gideon and Lia. He frowned, nodding at Hunter. "I get why he did all of this, but what do you two get out of it? I mean, I doubt you're the kind of people who risks their jobs for altruistic reasons." It was painful, the amount of hurt I could hear in his voice. "So, why don't you tell us, what did Vandal Savage do to you?"

I nodded in agreement. "And who are these Miranda and Rip people you mentioned?" I pointed at Hunter. "He said Rip was his dad. Assuming that's not just another lie, I'm guessing Miranda is Mommikins. But," I pointed my finger at the other two. "Who are they to you?"

Gideon and Lia exchanged a hesitant look; Lia suddenly found her shoes very interesting. For the first time since I'd met her, the woman seemed utterly speechless.

Gideon sighed, gently taking her wife's hand. As she spoke, her eyes drifted anywhere except towards the others and me. "For the last two decades, Rip and Miranda were our team mates. Our partners. Our..." Her voice faltered a little here. "Our friends."

When her eyes did finally meet mine for a split second, I caught sight of how glassy they were. I knee if we kept pushing her for answers, she would probably start crying; I shrank back the slightest bit, reverting my eyes to my messy reflection on the floor. I'd never been one to cause someone else pain, even if they had pissed me off.

"They'll die in three days time," Lia mumbled so quietly I'd almost missed it. "We were trying to stop Savage before then, but I guess now that the cat's out of the bag, you probably don't even want to help us." She shrugged pathetically. "Even if you did, Druce probably wouldn't even let us go on."

I glanced at Druce, who had strangely gone quiet throughout this little debacle. He had one thoughtful hand on his chin and an eyebrow quirked upwards, making him look a little like that one thinking emoji:

"Rip was always like a son to me," Druce said slowly. He looked sincere, but somehow something felt off about the way he'd said it, and if I'd learned anything over the past thirty-six hours, it was that my instincts were spot on.

I held my tongue though, unable to pin point exactly what it was that was bothering me about Druce's words.

"Unfortunately," Druce went on. "We cannot waste resources on such personal matters. We must stay focused."

Lia and Gideon nodded slowly. They looked disappointed but not surprised. Hunter deflated next to them, as his plans to save his parents were brutally stomped on and crushed. I might've felt sorry for him, except he'd lied to us, so sympathy for the guy was a bit hard to summon at the moment.

Carter glanced at Druce curiously. He spoke up for the first time since this conversation had started. "Focused on what?"

Druce eyed him for a moment before his eyes washed over the rest of us, the bored expression returning to his face. As his gaze met mine, I froze for a second. His eyes were completely empty, lifeless. As if he didn't care about a single person or thing in this room. We could have all dropped dead at any given moment, and he wouldn't even bat an eye.

"Savage," he said. "How much do you actually know about it?"

Kendra quirked an eyebrow at him. "Uh, well it is a psychotic tyrant who's killed Carter and me over two hundred times." Her voice was laced with a bit of hostility, and I imagined she was trying very hard not to add duh! to the end of her sentence.

Druce nodded curtly. He turned to the screen at the back of the room, taking a small remote from the inside of his robe. An image appeared on the screen: a gold and black flag, a circle with an arrow sticking up from it slapped in the middle.

Sara stared at the screen for a long moment, a blank expression on her face. She gestured at the image, looking just as bored as Druce did. "What's this? The male pride flag?"

"It's actually the astronomical sign for Mars," I told her. Everyone looked at me with that how the hell do you know that? look, so I went on awkwardly. "I studied astrology for a little while. The zodiacs and stuff seemed interesting..." I trailed off, fiddling with the sleeve of my jacket.

"Why are you showing it to us?" Leonard asked Druce impatiently.

"Yeah," Carter agreed. "What does any of this space stuff have to do with Savage?"

Gideon took over for Druce. "All organizations have a symbol. It's good for branding purposes." She pointed at the screen, eyeing us seriously. "This is S.A.V.A.G.E."

I blinked. "Wait. So...you're saying that Savage isn't even actually a guy? But an organization?"

"On the contrary," Gideon said. "Savage is both an immortal madman and an organization, which opposes the Time Bureau."

"So...Savage and S.A.V.A.G.E.," Kendra summed up, bouncing her finger across the air as she said the two different variations of the same word. "Which one were we supposed to be fighting again?"

"Both of them," Hunter said. "Vandal Savage is the founder of S.A.V.A.G.E."

I snorted, which made Lia look up again. She shrugged, making a face at the image. "Yeah, I know. Naming an organization after yourself is so egotistical..."

"S.A.V.A.G.E. has been operating undetected for centuries," Druce explained. "They never come out of the shadows, always hide behind those in power, discretely influencing them until war breaks out."

"Just like Savage," Kendra mumbled. Then, she furrowed her brows, quickly adding. "The person. Not the organization... Oh, man. That's going to be really confusing..."

I nodded in agreement with that last part. Druce went on to address the first half of her statement. "Who do you think started the World Wars? S.A.V.A.G.E. follows in their namesake's footsteps. They do everything as he does. To them, Savage is a god, and they worship him as such."

My guts turned in on itself like a lump of unbaked dough. "So he started a cult and named it after himself," I said, and I imagined my face was probably pretty green. "Lovely."

Druce nodded once again. "In the last two years S.A.V.A.G.E. has managed to aquire bits and pieces of our technology, making it even more impossible to locate them, as they discretely move through history. Which is why L.E.G.E.N.D.S. was put into motion." He gave us all a disappointed look. "Though, after today's display, I can see now that that was a mistake. We'll have to find some other alternative for defeating S.A.V.A.G.E."

"Hey!" I said. "That's not fair. You didn't even give us a chance!" I was pretty sure he was trying to manipulate us, but that didn't stop me from feeling offended by his words.

A moment ago, I'd been ready to walk, given Hunter's varies lies, but now I wanted to stay and prove myself to some asshole who's opinion didn't even actually matter to me. I just hated being doubted. I wasn't as useless as this guy was making me out to be. Neither were any of the others.

"Be that as it may, I did not permit the L.E.G.E.N.D.S. project to launch, and you are clearly not ready to take on this sort of threat," Druce said. "Even if you were, it's as I said before, we cannot waste resources for personal matters such as the lives of Miranda and Rip."

"What if we didn't need any resources?" Gideon spoke quickly. Druce shot her a curious look, so she went on hurriedly. "Lia can do all the time traveling. And I've got all my own equipment down on the eighteenth level. Never mind that you yourself just said the L.E.G.E.N.D.S. were put together specifically to take on S.A.V.A.G.E. Perhaps, they can take on Savage as well?"

That sentenced sounded confusing when spoken out loud, and I found myself thinking this conversation would be much easier to follow if it were written down.

"I also said they weren't ready for a task like this," Druce said, as if we weren't standing in the room. "And that the L.E.G.E.N.D.S. was a mistake to begin with. Look at them. After today it's clear, doing anything with this team will be like doing brain surgery with a chainsaw."

Next to me, Sara huffed. She was glaring daggers at the back of Druce's head, looking murderous. I contemplates whether or not I should even try to stop her if she did attempt to kill the bastard. This guy was starting to get on my last nerves. How dare he continuously insult us while we're standing right in front of him!

"If you don't trust us, why bother explaining about S.A.V.A.G.E.?" Sara asked moodily.

"It hardly matters," Druce said. "You won't be remembering this conversation anyways." He turned to the back of the room. "Chronos. Pilgrim."

The two bounty hunters had been standing in the back of the room so silently, I'd forgotten about them until they moved forward, simultaneously pulling a silver, bulky gun from their belts. (I imagined that was their version of a memory eraser.)

I stepped back nervously. I really did not want to get my mind erased. I preferred my memories to stay right where they belonged, in my head!

Gideon reacted fast, jumping between the hunters and the rest of us. She looked at Druce pleadingly. "Just give us a month! We'll train them. Get them ready to face S.A.V.A.G.E. and the Bureau won't have to do a thing. All we'll need is level eighteen and some time to prepare. We can stop S.A.V.A.G.E. and save Miranda and Rip without losing any money or resources."

I wasn't really sure how any of that would change his mind, but I guess Druce was more easily persuaded than I thought. He held up his hand to stop Pilgrim and Chronos and turned to Hunter. "You snuck in here from another time, stole our private files, and gathered the team without my authorization. If anything goes wrong on this mission, then it will be on you."

Hunter nodded nervously, as Druce swiftly turned to leave the room. Chronos and Pilgrim were on his heels like well trained puppies.

Leonard raised an eyebrow at Gideon before slowly turning to Hunter. "What makes you think we want to stick around after you lied to us?"

"We don't," Gideon admitted.

"But we're desperate," Hunter added.

Lia spoke up, eyeing each of us with a pleading look. "So, will you stick around?"

The room went silent for a long moment. I looked down at my feet, uncertain now. It seemed there was so much resting on my shoulders, I didn't even know where to begin. I would have liked to help, but I had no idea how to be a hero. I couldn't even use my powers to fend off against Chronos and Pilgrim earlier. How could I possibly take on an immortal with an army of evil spies?

Still, it seemed wrong to go back on my word now. I'd already told Hunter I'd help him and the others. Then again, he had lied to us before. What if this whole spy ordeal was just another lie? How could I trust someone who didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth?

Not to mention, the boss didn't seem to keen on us sticking around either. He'd done nothing but insult us the whole time we'd been in the same room. I didn't want to put up with that for much longer than I had to.

That would have been bad enough, except it didn't stop there. It wasn't just some guy being rude. We were actually losers. We'd been picked because we didn't matter. That stung a little.

Then, I remembered that image Hunter had shown us on the roof. All those children and animals dying... Those people hurting... If there was even a small chance of stopping it, I had to do something about it, didn't I? It was like a moral obligation.

But on the other hand, I was pretty morally obligated to the animals at the pet store already.

Before leaving this morning, I'd contacted one of my co-workers and asked them to hold down the fort while I was away, but I wasn't sure how long they could handle it by themselves.

What would happen to the animals if something happened to me on this mission?

I glanced up at the others to see I wasn't the only one conflicted about this. Professor Stein spoke up, clearing his throat a bit awkwardly. "I think we all need some time to consider our options."


	6. I Make a Choice

So, just to reiterate my point: don't ever trust a man who kidnapped you in the middle of the night. Not even if he tells you he can turn you into something extraordinary.

After learning the truth, everyone went to do their own things in separate rooms, to think over the new information we'd been given.

I stayed in the room Chronos and Pilgrim had brought us to - the Vanishing Point, I remembered Lia calling it. (I didn't really have enough energy to move further than a few feet.)

Belatedly, I wondered why it was called that. The name suggested something a lot more sinister, I thought. But I guess it didn't really matter.

I slumped over in one of the chairs, laying my head on the surface of the table at the center of the room, groaning.

It was hard to believe any of this was happening. Like some sort of cosmic joke. As if the universe was just like, "Hey, so you know how you've felt like a total loser your whole life? Well, guess what!? You are!"

I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay or not. It was sort of hard to feel obligated to lend a helping hand after Captain What's-His-Face lied to everyone.

How could I trust him again? How could I be sure that there wouldn't be even more lies to come in the near future?

There was no way of telling, and I really didn't want to take any chances. Lying wasn't something I took lightly.

I'd been lied to many times before, and each time it had always ended very badly for me.

In the sixth grade I'd been told that my pet hamster had run away and gotten hit by car. Then, I found out that had been a lie, and I'd been so devastated that I almost ruined the entire school play that year with a big bouquet of billions and motor engine. (Very long story. Don't ask.)

My sophomore year, one of my so called friends had convinced me the boy I liked had a mutual crush. Naturally, I foolish asked him out, only to find out that my 'friend' had been playing a 'prank' on me.

Another time, in one of the less than adequate foster homes I'd been in, my foster parent had promised we'd go to the movies - only to back out at the last second. I know it wasn't really that big of a deal, but at the time it was pretty crushing.

And another time - Well, never mind. The point was, I did not like lying. Period.

There was really no reason for it in any situation. It was just another form of manipulation that people tended to normalize, and it pissed me off.

Especially in this case. This guy just swoops in, seduces me with all this coolness and promises of greatness... And then... Nothing. I get absolutely nothing. But he somehow still expected me and the others to help him?

Still, it didn't seem like these self proclaimed Time Masters had their shit together. (Not like I did either, but whatever.) They were barely holding it together against these S.A.V.A.G.E. people, according the argument Lia and Gideon had been having with their boss.

In addition a guy with the same name was tearing his way through history, slaughtering people left and right as if it were some kind of Olympic sport.

That was a lot to digest, even for a top secret organization with advanced tech, I guess.

Then again, they were a secret organization with advanced tech. So, why would they even need me? Or any of us?

They had time traveling watches. Guns that erased people's memories. Not to mention this pretty sick base of operations.

They seemed to have a surplus of agents already; surely at least one of them was more equip and, well, trained to take on this sort of threat.

Sure, Sara and Ray were trained. Even Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Jax had a few skills, I was sure. They were heroes.

But the first time I try to do something remotely useful? I freeze up and become completely useless. I didn't even know how to use my powers for combat; like Druce said, it would be a waste of time to train me when both Savage and S.A.V.A.G.E. were out there causing trouble. It made more sense to just send the people who already knew what they were doing.

Yet, for some reason Hunter and the Ryder women thought I was worthy enough to be on this team. Whoever had put together those files for the L.E.G.E.N.D.S. project thought I was a nice addition to the team.

Even though I couldn't fight to save my life and three of us had started a bar fight.

We'd barely started anything and already everything was a complete disaster. No wonder Druce was having second thoughts about the program.

I had to wonder why the Time Masters bothered with us in the first place. Why didn't they just put their agents in L.E.G.E.N.D.S. instead?

Why did they even need the L.E.G.E.N.D.S. in the first place? The answer suddenly hit me like a box of bricks, and I blanched.

We were losers. Our effect on history was next to nothing; so we were expendable, unlike the rest of the agents at the Time Bureau. If something got harry, they could just send us in, and if we died on the mission, no one would miss us. Ouch.

The thought had my eyes stinging. Normally, I wasn't much of a crier, but I'd never been able to handle rejection very well. And it felt like the universe had just sent me the biggest rejection letter ever.

I should have just stayed with the pets at the shop, I thought bitterly.

A thud caused me to lift my head; a moment later I found myself jumping to my feet, covering my mouth as I let out a gasp.

Because just a few feet in front of me, a woman, who I had been absolutely certain was not there before, sat on the floor. She was crouched down on her hands and knees, as if she had just fallen from space or something.

Messy black curls aligned her face, swooped to one side like the wind had blown it all over the place. Though even in such an untamed style, the hair complimented her dark complexion nicely.

Deep, brown eyes stared back at me, widening like she was surprised to see me too.

She was wearing a tan, winter coat, little patches of melting snow slipping down her shoulders.

I thought she might have been another Time Master, coming back from a rather rough mission in Antarctica by the looks of it.

At least I doubted she'd come in through the doorway. She was all the way on the other side of the room, and I hadn't heard any footsteps. So, I figured she must have just used a portal with one of those time courier things.

But before I could ask her to confirm it, a streak of yellow lighting flickered into the room. It was just for a brief moment, a flash of light and then it was gone.

When it subsided, the woman was gone too. The lightning had just zipped in, grabbed her, and disappeared. I blinked. "What the hell?"

"What?" I turned to see Mick standing in the doorway. His form was so massive that his shoulders nearly touched each end of the frame.

He was carrying a beer in one hand (because I guess he hadn't gotten in enough trouble the first time he drank alcohol today) and a sandwich in the other.

Vaguely, I wondered where he got the food, because it looked kind of good and I was a little hungry too. But I had bigger things to worry about at the moment.

I pointed to the other end of the room. "There was a woman sitting right there. You didn't see her?"

"Nope," he said bluntly, taking a bit of his sandwich.

"How? She was right there! And the lightning took her."

"Lightning?" He tilted his head to one side, looking completely lost. I sighed. Clearly he did not see what I saw; maybe I was just hallucinating from all the stress in the last twenty minutes.

"Never mind..." I grumbled.

He shrugged and kept messily eating, getting crumbs all over the place. I rolled my eyes at him.

Glancing around the room again, I realized that this was the first time we'd been alone together since this whole thing started.

I felt my face heating up, and suddenly the room seemed much smaller. "Uh..."

Mick shifted awkwardly, apparently realizing the same thing I had. He shoved the rest of his sandwich in his mouth all at once, maybe so he didn't have to talk to me anymore.

"Um...I'm going to, uh, go find the others," I mumbled. But Mick was still blocking the doorway, so when I moved to leave I ended up bumping right into him.

For a few dreaded seconds, we went back and forth desperately trying to get around each other. Somehow I managed to get out into the hall without tripping over my own two feet and making an even bigger idiot of myself.

Briskly, I made my way down the hall, letting out a breath of air through my nose and running my hands through my hair.

I still didn't know if I wanted to stay or not, but I knew working with him was going to be awkward as hell.

Sara, Ray, Leonard, and Jax were sitting amongst a stack of crates when I found them.

The room was huge, maybe fifty by fifty. Polished floors still allowed me to see my reflection, much to my announce. I already knew I looked like a reck, and I did not need to see it, thank you very much!

Flouresant lights dimly lit the room, their own reflection glaring against the polished flooring. The crates were scattered around the room without any sort of order it seemed.

I cringed, feeling the need to organize them a little better; but I ignored it in favor of the more important issues. (Besides, if I left then it would be pointless to fix them anyway.)

Some of the boxes looked large enough to store two double decker buses inside, and I found myself wondering just what the Time Masters had stored away in here. Weapons? Tools? Vehicles?

"What's the point in giving this a second thought?" Ray's cryptic voice brought my attention back towards the others. It was surprising.

I'd only known the guy for a few hours tops, but somehow it was really hard to picture him saying something so cynical; it seemed oddly out of character, wrong. This whole legends thing must have really been getting to him.

I frowned with sympathy as I made my way over to the others. Ray went on. "Jonas and the Ryders have seen the future. They know exactly what's in store for each of us."

"Yeah. That we're all just a bunch of nobodies?" Jax huffed from where he was leaning against the wall. "I can't believe Grey kidnapped me for nothing."

Ray nodded sadly. "Might as well have just stayed dead." I wasn't sure what he meant by that. I remembered Sara and the hawks mentioning something about reincarnation, but as far as I knew Ray had never died before. "Cause the world doesn't need any of us."

I looked down, fiddling with my finger nails awkwardly. I wanted to disagree with what he was saying, but it was really hard when I was having similar thoughts.

I didn't know any cool tricks. I didn't have an interesting job. I didn't even have any real hobbies.

The closest thing I had to a social life was talking to the animals at the shop and ordering the employees around. I never went out with friends. Never went out of my way to be a good samaritan.

Come to think of it, I never went out of my way to do much of anything. I wasn't good at much. I couldn't do artsy stuff. I wasn't smart enough for accounting. (Hell, I barely had enough intelligence to run the pet shop!)

All I did was work, sleep, and eat. I'd never seen the point of doing much else before because I had always been able to survive on the bare necessities. Compared to most people, my life was pretty boring.

My heart sank, and I slumped against one of the crates. With that perspective in mind, it was easy to see why history didn't think I was important.

I didn't even remotely stick out. I had never done anything significant with my life, and according to the Time Masters I never would. Within twenty years, probably less, I would just be another random face in the crowd that no one really paid attention to. Just a useless waste of space.

Ray went on with his depressing speech, nodding at Sara. "You're just a lost assassin."

Sara, who had been perched on one of the crates a moment before, got to her feet, an annoyed look on her face. I got the feeling she didn't appreciate the attitude change Ray was having.

But before she could chew him out for it, he was moving on again, turning his attention to Leonard. "You and your partner are just a pair of good for nothing criminals. And -"

"I can live with that." I glanced up to see Mick walking in with the other three trailing behind him. I groaned inwardly and put my head in my hands. At least I wouldn't be alone with him this time.

"Well I can't." Ray barely spared the others a second glance as he looked down at the floor. "Can't live with someone putting a cap on my destiny."

Kendra shrugged, looking a little in different about the whole thing. "I don't know. I think fate and destiny are entrapping, myself."

Ray responded to her statement with a shrug of his own. "It's just that I spent my whole life working to be something greater by becoming something smaller... And then some people come along and tell me that being the Atom is as insignificant as an actual atom."

"Yeah, but that's not what they said." I looked up as Sara moved to the center of the room, eyes scanning over our group with such an intensity I shrank back a little.

"They said in their future we're nobodies." She paused briefly. "But this mission is about changing the future. I mean, if we have the power to change the world, don't you think we have the power to change our own fate?"

"For better or for worse," Leonard agreed. Though, it was odd that he cared one way or another, considering he'd already made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in helping anyone but himself.

"At least, now we know we have the freedom to do whatever we want," Kendra said, trying to think positively.

The Professor nodded in agreement. "I, uh, suppose Ms. Saunders and Miss Lance have a point. With our effect on history being minimal we are not tied down by expectations, because it, essentially, doesn't matter. It's actually quite liberating when one stops to think about it..."

I stood up, nodding slightly. I hadn't thought about it like that before, but it sort of made sense. If there were no consequences for our actions, then it didn't matter what we did.

It didn't matter if we stayed to help Hunter and the Ryders, if we stopped Savage and his cult or if we just left and continued on with our pathetic lives. It wouldn't make a difference, because either way history still forgot us.

Which could have been a pretty depressing statement. Maybe it should have made me want to give up even more, except somehow, like the professor said, it was liberating. And I found myself wanting to continue on with the mission.

Like teenagers gone wild, there were no rules. We could do whatever we wanted. We had the freedom to choose our own fates without it already being planned out and written for us.

We could choose to end both Savage and S.A.V.A.G.E. and change our fates, become the legends we'd been told we were. We could turn Hunter's lie into a truth.

Ray looked between the others, apparently feeling much better himself, judging from the small smile forming on his face. "That's a good point."

Jax nodded, shrugging slightly. "Yeah, I guess I've always liked working with a team anyways." I thought his opinion had changed rather spontaneously for someone who'd been brought here against his will, but I didn't question it too much.

"I don't really give a damn about being a legend," Carter put his two sense in. "As long as we end Savage once and for all."

Mick shrugged, grunting out his own opinion. "We done with all this sappy crap? I want to go burn some stuff now."

I looked around at the others, slowly breaking out into a small grin of my own. "I guess that means we're staying, then?"

* * *

**My chapters have been really short this week, being about 2,000 words instead of the usual 3,000 - 5,000.**

**And I'm a bit self conscious about that. Is it okay? I really tried to do my best for you all. I really hope you liked at least some part of this**

**Also, I thought it would be fun to have some trivia for y'all so here it is!**

_1\. Skylee is named after two of my best friends. Her first name is the name my best friend Mikky introduced herself to me as. And she shares her last name with my childhood best friend, Shelby_

_2\. She had two other names before Skylee. The first being Olivia and the second being Skyler_

_3\. Originally she written for my other fic Juvie Days, which features a teenage Mick and Leonard. Though, since the story progress for JD is so slow she has yet to make an appearance in that story_

_**That's all for now, toodles!**_

_**~ Elsie **_


	7. The Legends Play Terrorist

We found Hunter and Gideon back at the bridge. Hunter was slumped against the console at the center, while Gideon worked on the keyboard next to him. Lia was no where in sight.

Hunter sighed and looked at the brunette off to his side; apparently neither of them had realized we had entered the room.

I wasn't sure how. It wasn't as if we were a particularly small group. "What do you think, Gideon?"

Gideon gave him a small shrug in return, keeping her gaze fixed on the screens that were much too high above her head. "I did the math, and I calculate a less than six percent likelihood that they decide to go on with the mission."

Hunter nodded slowly, grimacing slightly at that news. I couldn't help blanching myself.

It was hard to believe that we were already defying the odds, and it gave me hope for the future.

"And," Gideon went on. "There's been another unfortunate consequence of Chronos and Pilgrim's attack. Care to hear about it?"

"Not really…" Hunter shook his head.

"He's dead," Kendra said, telling him about it anyways. She took a step forward as Hunter and Gideon turned to face us.

Gesturing at Carter and herself, Kendra clarified. "Our son…er, our son from our previous life?" She made a face. "It's all so confusing…"

"What?" I asked, my eyes widening with shock. Boardman was dead already? When did that happen?

"We had Lia bring us back to the university after everyone parted," Carter explained. "We wanted to check on him after everything, but apparently Chronos and Pilgrim got there first…"

I wasn't entirely sure what I was supposed to feel at hearing that news. Sad? Sympathy?

It was hard losing a kid, sure, but the whole situation was so completely bizarre that I was having trouble following.

Besides, Carter and Kendra didn't even remember having a kid in the first place. How heart broken could they be?

Hunter seemed more empathetic than I was, but somehow I thought he was just trying to make up for lying to everyone. "I'm very sorry."

Gideon stopped what she was doing at the computer and turned to face the rest of us as well. She frowned sadly, folding her arms in front of her professionally.

Her clothes looked more professional now too, her shirt buttoned up properly and her pants ironed neatly.

She'd brushed her hair and pinned it back in a low ponytail; and she was actually wearing shoes now.

( It was only when I spotted her wearing shoes at all that I realized she'd be barefoot the entire time we'd been visiting with Boardman. Somehow, that little fact made my respect for her grow.)

The look was odd on her though. From the moment I'd met her, Gideon seemed to be the furthest thing from professional – goofy, fun, and maybe a bit unorthodox.

The sudden change gave me whiplash. As if I was no longer staring at Gideon Ryder but her white collared twin sister. (Then again, I had only known Gideon for a few hours. Maybe I'd gotten the wrong impression entirely.)

Gideon focused her attention on the hawks, that sad frown never leaving her face. "One of the greatest lessons of time travel is that many things cannot be changed. Time wants to happen. Chronos, Pilgrim, even Vandal Savage and his organization won't be the only enemies we face. Very often it will be time itself."

Ray moved next to Kendra, his eyes lighting up with determination, arms folded in front of him seriously. A total attitude change from the way he'd been not to long ago, but somehow this change brought a small grin to my lips.

"Whether time wants to happen or not, we're gonna change time, erase Savage and S.A.V.A.G.E.'s future, and earn our rightful place in history."

Stein stepped forward next, coming to a standstill on the other side of Kendra, a stubborn look in his eyes. "Dr. Palmer is correct. We may not be legends in your time, Captain Hunter, Ms. Ryder, but we are going to decide our own fates."

The others moved into the room one by one, each forming a half circle at the center of the bridge, leaving me to stupidly stand by my lonesome. Even Leonard and Mick were in sync with the rest of the team.

They each posed – folding their arms or placing their hands on their hips – looking like they were getting ready for a super hero themed photo shoot.

I snorted and went to stand next to Hunter and Gideon. "Did you guys practice that or something?"

"Would you believe me if I said no?" Ray said, laughing slightly and ruining the poster board moment.

Gideon grinned, that mischievous glint returning to her charcoal eyes. Next to her Hunter let out a quiet sigh of relief, and I couldn't help feeling a tinge of annoyance.

(Just because I'd decided to help him, didn't mean I had to like him. Besides, I was doing this for myself as much as I was doing it for him.)

Sara stepped forward again, looking as serious as ever. She looked between Hunter and Gideon, a bit impatient. "So how do we find this guy and his organization or whatever?"

"Professor Boardman had a theory about that," Hunter said.

"Lia's already getting prepared for the time jump as we speak," Gideon said.

I nodded, but I couldn't help wondering about their son. They had only mentioned him one time since we'd gotten here, and I had yet to see him anywhere. Was he still here? Did the Time Masters just have a day care center on one of their eighteen levels?

Gideon turned back to the screen, pressing a button and ruining my train of thought; the screens flashed just as they had when Lia had been looking for Boardman.

Only this time instead of a map of St. Roch, an image of the fjords of northern Norway appeared. The date above the new map read:

OCTOBER 1975

On the screen next to the map, an imagine of an old, rundown warehouse was placed.

In the background there was an ocean, the water's waves caught in freeze-frame as it splashed against the surface of a nearby beach.

Leonard eyed the screen, quirking one brow upwards as he took the new information in. "Looks like a vacation."

"Which we can take as soon as the threat of Savage and his followers has been neutralized, Mr. Snart."

Hunter held up the journal Boardman had given him back at the university, apparently ready to jump back into action before we all came to our senses and decided to go home.

Hunter turned the book so that we could see the page he'd been reading while we had all gathered in – what I guessed was probably – the cargo hold whining like a bunch of angsty teens. "Professor Boardman theorized that Savage might be here."

I leaned forward to skim over the page, making a face. "Might? I thought you said this guy was an expert? What's with all the guess work?"

My face heated up as I remembered he was Kendra and Carter's son. I glanced at them. "Uh, no offense…"

Neither of them said anything, so I figured I was probably in the clear. Or maybe they were just silently plotting my murder for it…

Hunter shrugged, bringing everyone's attention back to him. "Well, if he's right, and if we capture Savage, then at least Professor Boardman didn't die in vain."

I scoffed, rolling my eyes and leaning against the console. Like he cared. It was clearly just another form of manipulation he was using – pretending to sympathize with them so they'll think he's on their side.

Apparently, Kendra and Carter weren't satisfied with that response though because they exchanged looks before glancing between Gideon and Hunter.

"Can't we just go back and save Aldus?" Kendra asked.

Gideon and Hunter shook their heads simultaneously, which might have been comical under different circumstances.

Carter frowned. "He was our son."

Gideon sighed, looking genuinely upset over it. I imagined she was probably thinking about what it would feel like if the tables were turned, if it had been her son instead of theirs.

"Look, I'm sorry. We can't go back and change events in which we've already participated."

"Time would fold in on itself and collapse," Hunter explained.

"Which sounds way cooler than it is," Ray added.

Belatedly, I wondered if he had some experience with time 'collapsing' in on itself. From his tone, I thought he might have - he must have at least seen something similar to it before.

I didn't worry about it too much though, rolling my eyes again at Hunter's behavior.

There was a rude comment begging to be said. How could he expect us to help save his family when he wouldn't help any of us do the same? That didn't seem fair, but I held my tongue, not wanting to start another fight.

Sara stepped in again, an irritated sigh of her own escaping her lips. "Forgetting physics for a second, shouldn't we try to figure out what Savage is doing in Norway?"

"There is a large meeting of terrorists and fringe groups looking to buy illegal arms," Gideon said.

Mick laughed venomously, and I jumped a little at the sudden loud noise. "Now that sounds like a vacation."

Leonard shrugged. "Arms dealers and terrorists aren't exactly our kind of people, but they're the next best thing."

He flashed Sara some sort of look, and my mouth fell open. Was he seriously already trying to flirt with the poor woman?

Sara ignored him though, acting as if she hadn't even heard the comment. Props to her.

Carter sneered at the two thieves rudely. "Looks like you and your lap dog get to earn your keep."

Mick glared back at him dangerously. "I'm no one's lap dog bird man."

I couldn't help thinking that wasn't true, though. I'd known them as teens and Mick had always followed Leonard around, acting more like an attack dog than an actual friend.

And it didn't seem like things had changed much since we were kids. I didn't dare voice this opinion, though.

Gideon spoke up again, gaining all the attention once more before a fight broke out between Hawkman and Mick.

"S.A.V.A.G.E. will be among the many organizations there. My best guess is that Vandal Savage will be their spokesperson."

Kendra nodded slowly. She tilted her head to the side, looking thoughtful. "What exactly does one wear to a black market arms bazaar, anyways?"

Gideon grinned lightly. She pointed down one of the catwalks. "Down there and to the left. There's a fabrication room, which can fashion temporally-indigenous, erm, fashion. That's where Lia is now."

Jax made a face. "You've got a room that makes clothing?" I had to admit, it sounded pretty cool.

Hunter shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal though. "Doesn't everyone?"

At first I thought he was being a smart ass, but the question actually seemed genuine.

As if he had no idea that people from the twenty-first century didn't have magical clothing rooms.

Wow. People of the future really had it made didn't they?

Ray grinned from ear to ear, looking like a small child getting ready to go to the candy store, which was a bit freaky considering where we were going. "Alright, first thing we need to do is make up a plan!"

Leonard shot him an irritated look, making Ray shrink back a bit. "Got a lot of experience infiltrating criminal gatherings?"

Before Ray could even open his mouth to respond he was going on with his usual annoying cockiness. "Didn't think so. I'm calling the shots."

I rolled my eyes, but I didn't say anything, knowing it would definitely start something if I did.

Besides, Gideon beat me to it anyway. "Actually," she said, gesturing at herself and Hunter. "We're in charge in case any of you have forgotten."

"No," Leonard said with a long, drawn out sigh. "I remember, I just don't care."

Gideon glared at him, and I found myself taking a step back from her. Her glare was even colder than Leonard's, something I wasn't very accustomed to. "Do I need to remind you that I'm a Time Master? Making discrete alterations to the time line is what I do."

Hunter nodded in agreement. "So, we're not just going to charge into the past like a bull in a China –"

"Half of what you told us about the mission turned out to be lies," Mick cut him off.

I was just glad to see I wasn't the only one who was still bitter at the captain for his actions.

Gideon sighed in exasperation. She pinched the bridge of her nose and squinted her eyes, apparently feeling a headache coming on.

"Look, I'm not saying that you don't have a right to be angry, but time travel is very tricky business. None of you have the knowledge we do. And none of you have ever faced Vandal Savage before."

I shook my head and pointed at Kendra and Carter. "Not true." The two hawk warriors each gave the time traveling brunette a small wave, reminding her that they were still in the room.

"Aside from Mr. Hall and Miss Saunders," Gideon corrected herself.

"And I have," Hunter put in. He looked between each of us in turn. "And I'm telling you now – you are making a big mistake!"

Ray shifted his weight from foot to foot, that sad, pathetic look returning briefly.

When he spoke, his voice was just a soft mumble, like he didn't really want anyone to hear it. "Already did that when we trusted you."

Hunter blanched, but I didn't think he really had a right to be offended. He brought on all the hatefulness himself. It would take a while before any of us fully trusted him again.

Leonard and Mick simultaneously turned with swift movements, heading in the direction that Gideon had indicated. "Be back soon, Captain," Mick called over his shoulder.

* * *

Have you ever seen one of those SciFi movies where they have all those neat holographic tools and gizmos?

That's pretty much what the Time Bureau's fabrication room looked like. The back wall was full of blue holographic projections, white lettering and numbers and see through keyboards.

Below my feet, the flooring was made entirely out of glass, giving the illusion that we were floating in mid air. Off to one side, eight mannequins stood, blue lights hovering above them where I imagined the clothes would be fabricated.

Lia was already pressing buttons on the holographic keyboard. She pointed to the mannequins as we entered, not even turning around to look at us.

"Get dressed," she ordered monotonously. "We leave in five."

"Hm. So much for you calling the shots," I mumbled to Leonard. He rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored me.

We watched as the blue light washed over the mannequins on the other side of the room, clothing materials materializing just like one of those 3D printers.

I had to admit, it was pretty neat; and I fully intended to play with it more later and see just what the thing could really do.

Clothes were a little side hobby of mine. I didn't really keep up with what was "in style," but it was fun to experiment with different looks. Sexy but cute, you know?

Unfortunately, Lia had already picked our clothes for each of us, which really took the fun out of it for me. But at least she'd chosen something I'd like.

I wasn't sure if she was just good at reading people or if I was just an open book like that.

I didn't question it too much though, moving to get dressed. (Thankfully, there were stalls for everyone to change in privacy.)

Sara and I each wore a denim shirt and tight pants, though my pants were cut much shorter than hers while she had the addition of a camouflage bandanna wrapped around her head.

Professor Stein wore a beige turtle neck under a dark blazer, black dress pants, and ugly brown shoes.

Mick's outfit looked pretty modern - dark jeans, a grey t-shirt over a navy green jacket, and big boots that'd probably be pretty painful should one get kicked by one of them.

Leonard got dressed in all dark clothing - a black shirt under a dark blazer and dark pants and shoes. (I couldn't help thinking he was the emo teen of the group, despite the fact that he was probably nearing forty by now.)

When Jax, Ray, and the hawks moved to change as well, Leonard stopped them. He gestured at Jax and the hawks. "You three are going to wait on the roof. And you..." He turned, lazily aiming a finger at Ray. "Get in the professor's pocket."

Stein blanched, looking a bit surprised by that order; Ray looked a tad awkward too. "I beg your pardon?"

Leonard sighed, rolling his eyes again like he thought the pair of them were extremely slow. "With the shrinking suit. Get small. And get in his pocket."

Ray nodded curtly in understanding. "Oh right, okay." He made a face. "Wait. Uh, why?"

"Because I said so," Leonard snapped.

Jax gave him an odd look too, folding his arms and huffing a bit childishly. "Why don't I get to play terrorist?"

I cringed at the word choice, but I held my tongue. I didn't need to go making people think I had a crude sense of humor or anything. (I did but that was besides the point.)

"This is just a kidnapping. No need for your nuclear fireworks." Leonard gestured between Stein and Jax, drawling his voice out in a monotonous tone.

Jax shrugged like, okay, fair enough.

Lia stepped towards the center of the room, hand held out as she prepared to use her powers of time travel and teleportation.

* * *

We landed inside the warehouse; men dressed in cliche turbans and suits gathered from the large endurance at the front of the building, where there were guards checking credentials.

Sara eyed the guards, letting out a low sigh as her eyes wandered over the weapons hanging from their belts. "Good thing we could by pass all of that..."

I nodded slowly in agreement, my stomach twisting slightly at the sight of all the weapons. Some part of me was hoping that none of them had spotted us, because I seriously doubted they'd be very friendly to a bunch of weird time traveling misfits interrupting their little auction.

Looking around I felt kind of nervous. It was obvious I didn't belong here. I knew nothing about weapons or terrorizing Innocent people.

There was no way I'd be able to play this part even with my rebellious teenage phase for a reference.

The others didn't seem as worried as I was, though. Sara was calmly glancing around the large room, looking cool and confident.

Mick and Leonard seemed oddly at home, and I found myself remembering how Leonard had called arms dealers and terrorists the "next best thing." Kind of disturbing...

Even the professor seemed uncomfortably at ease. Which just made me even more weary of him.

I tried to relax, hoping that I wouldn't look too out of place if I mimicked the others.

Lia, Jax, and the hawks weren't with us, though. I guessed Lia must have teleported our two groups separately or something, taking herself and the others to the roof as Leonard had instructed. (Guess he was calling the shots after all.)

Leonard narrowed his eyes at the brutish men as we passed by them on our way to the front of the room, apparently finding them suspicious. Maybe he was just worried they'd over hear our conversation.

"Savage will be one of the buyers," he reminded us. "Once we get eyes on, hang back. We'll boost him when this is over."

We split up, each of us taking a walk around the room. I moved slowly, pushing my way passed a group of men, eyeing them nervously.

I hoped I didn't look too timid. The last thing I wanted was to make myself look like an easy target in a place like this.

I scanned the room as best I could. Hunter and Gideon had showed us an image of Vandal Savage before we'd left, but I didn't see anyone that matched his description.

"Any sign of him?" Carter asked through the coms, sounding a bit anxious.

"No," Leonard snipped back. Mick and I came to a stop on either side of him, and he frowned like he was expecting something bad to happen.

That look worried me. As much as I disliked him, he was usually right about those sort of things; it was like he had a sixth sense or something. If he thought something was about to go down, it probably was.

"He's not here, boss," Mick noted.

Leonard nodded, apparently coming to the same conclusion. He eyed a few men wearily as they passed by us. "Let's get Ginger and the Professor and move out."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Gilligan's Island?"

"Yeah. Problem with that?" he retorted.

I shrugged. Partly because I didn't really care, partly because a second later a man made his way to the stage at the front of the room before I could think of a clever response.

The man had a long, scruffy dark beard and unruly hair. His teeth were crooked and yellowed; from the belt under his coat I could see more than a few sharp objects.

I gasped realizing I recognized him from the photos. Vandal Savage. The other two rejoined our group at the front as the immortal cult leader started the weapons auction.

"Seems we were wrong about Savage," Stein said like that wasn't already abundantly clear. "He's not the buyer."

"He's the seller," Sara finished.

The bids slowly rose higher and higher, each organization firing off a round from their guns as they bid for the bomb Savage was selling.

I stood there, completely shell shocked. How the heck had we been wrong? Wasn't Boardman supposed to have this stuff down to a T?

Next to me, the others looked just as stunned and confused as I was. Leonard looked like he was about to suggest retreat, but before he could say anything Savage suddenly froze, his body becoming stalk still.

After a moment, Savage turned his attention to the audience in front of the stage, almost like he was trying to locate someone. And I could have sworn he was looking right at us.

"Oh, shit," I mumbled. "He made us."

"Yes," Stein nodded nervously. "It does seem we've drawn some unwanted attention." He turned to Mick quickly. "We need to bid. Fire your gun!"

Gun? I glanced at Mick and realized he was no clutching a little black pistol in his hands. Where had he gotten that from?

It hardly mattered. Mick fired the thing off, just as the PLO called out a bid for one hundred twenty-five million dollars. (I thought it was weird that they were using American money in Norway, but who was I to judge historical accuracy when we were actually in the past.)

The other organizations went silent after that. I frowned, looking around in confusion as the PLO called, "Going once...going twice..."

"What's happening?" Sara wondered, sounding just as confused as I was.

Stein frowned. "It's what's not happening that is the concern."

"Nobody else is bidding," Leonard said, sounding uneasy.

I groaned, my stomach twisting slightly again. "Oh, please don't tell me we're about to by a nuclear bomb..."

"Sold!" the PLO called out when no one else bid, and I groaned again.

Mick laughed deviously. "Yup." He clapped Stein on the back, grinning like a manic. "Congestions, Professor. You just bought yourself a nuclear weapon!"

Stein didn't look as excited about it as Mick did though. In fact, he looked as queasy as I felt.

Sara's eyes widened as a man approached us. "Holy hell, is that Damien Darhk?"

I blanched, taking a closer look, my mouth falling open as I realized she was right. I recognized the snowy haired man that was heading our way from the news, his blue eyes piercing dangerously into my soul.

He'd been fighting the Green Arrow as of late in Star City. But that was back in 2016. Aka, forty-one years in the future!

Yet, there he was stalking towards us in all his evil magician glory. He looked the exact same age as he did in 2016, no younger, no older.

How was that possible? Did he time travel too? Did he use some of his weird voodoo magic to slow his aginf process? And what was he doing here? Was he Vandal Savage's bestie?

"Well, well," Darhk mused as he came to a stop in front of us. "We seem to have a new player..." He eyed Stein quizzically. "But you seem a bit academic. Who are you and how did you get in here?"

The professor was obviously struggling to come up with a clever lie, but as it turned out he didn't need to. Mick stepped forward, glaring dangerously at Darhk. "Hey! Back off!"

Darhk glared back at him. "Watch your tone!"

I bit my lip, worried Mick was going to start some sort of huge fight, especially as Savage made his way over to our group to help out his psycho bestie. He eyed eyes suspiciously. "Is there some sort of problem?"

Up close he looked even more frightening, and I could definitely see the insanity in his eyes.

Still, Mick didn't seem remotely put off, keeping his sights set on Darhk, growling. I tried to give him a warning look, like, please don't start anything!

But he didn't get the message, shoving Darhk in the chest roughly. "Yeah. Master Race here is starting to bug me."

Leonard stepped forward, carefully placing a hand in front of Mick and pushing him back. Somehow his methods were a lot more effective than mine. "We're just going to get our nuclear war head and be on our way."

"Not without paying first," Savage said.

Stein stepped in with a smart ass attitude. "Once we've validated that the warhead is operational. Personally, I find it highly unlikely that you were able to accumulate enough fissionable material in this era to fashion a working nuclear device."

Savage raised an eyebrow at him. "In this era?" Oh, he definitely made us...

"Figure of speech," the professor tried anyways.

Savage turned back onto the stage, turning around slowly, gaining everyone's attention again. Meanwhile, Darhk slipped away, disappearing into the crowd.

"I got a feeling you guys might want to get those helmets of yours on," Jax said to the hawks through the coms.

"Change of plans!" Savage called out to the organizations. "I will provide a twenty percent discount to the organization that brings me the heads of these men!" He pointed at Mick, Stein, and Leonard. Apparently, Sara and I weren't important enough for a bounty.

Mick leaned over to Leonard, hand on his Heat Gun. I could tell he was just itching to use it. "Can I burn some stuff now?"

"I wish you would," Leonard replied, his hand going to his own Cold Gun.

* * *

**Alright. Hopefully this is okay. It was kind of a struggle since the beginning isn't particularly my favorite; and I've already done it with Sandstorm so it's a bit of a drag.**

**But I did try my best so I really hope it was okay. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments!**

**_that's all for now, toodles!_**

**_~ elsie _**


	8. I Learn I'm no Good in a Fight

To be frank, I'm not a fan of large scale battles and chaotically brute force.

That was mostly because I had the grace of a brick wall and the swiftness of hardening cement.

In addition, I'd never been too great at processing more than one piece of information at once. (Which made it really weird that I was able to run a store, because business could get really crazy at times.)

Several things happened at once. Mick and Leonard whipped out their guns, moving swiftly so that they stood back to back as they fired their weapons.

Frost and fire swirled around the room, freezing and burning the attackers as they charged the criminal duo. I had to dug once so I didn't get caught in the crossfire.

Sara was running around with the speed of a god; she clutched a bo staff in her hand, though I had no idea where she'd gotten it. I hadn't seen her pull it out or even pack it before we'd left.

The other blonde swept a man's feet out from under him, sending him tumbling down to the floor harshly before running off to beat the living day lights out of someone else.

Leonard froze a man's feet to the ground before he was sent flying across the room by Mick's flames.

Next to me, the Waverider and the others appeared, making me jump. Lia smirked to herself. "This went to crap fast."

We didn't have much time to chat. Immediately after the words left her mouth, she was engaging in hand to hand combat with a man who was twice her size.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl flew off as well, grabbing hold of the attackers and flying them up to the ceiling before dropping them and letting their bones crack.

Sara was running back and forth across the warehouse, smacking anyone who dared challenge her, bringing them down with ease.

Leonard and Mick were still taking turns shooting their guns, taking great care to not accidentally cross their streams.

Waverider had taken down her opponent and now she was teleporting around the room, punching people out with one quick blow to the back of their heads.

Jax was running across the room to where the Professor was being strangled by a two ton man. I wasn't sure how with all the chaos, but I heard them from where I stood.

"Now would be a good time!" Stein was saying.

"Yeah," the criminal sneered, "to kill you!"

"I wasn't talking to you!" Stein snapped.

Ray flew from his pocket, sending a blue ion blast at the criminal as he grew to normal size again, sending the attacker flying into the wall. Jax reached them just as the Atom flew off to join the hawks.

"Well, you screwed that up pretty good," Jax snickered to the professor.

"I had it under control!" Stein protested.

"I love how you actually believe that."

The younger man held his hand out for the elder; Stein rolled his eyes but clasped his hand around the other man's. In an instant, fire consumed them, just for a split second before it dispersed.

Jax stood alone, now; and for a second I thought Stein had been evaporated before I realized he must have just momentarily disappeared or shrunk down like Ray had done.

Jax's eyes were completely white, like a golf ball; his head was bursting with flames, hands ablaze as well. His clothes had changed too -- he was now wearing a red and yellow suit with and odd metal thing on his chest.

In an instant, the burning man took to the sky. He flew back and forth across the warehouse, blasting flames down upon the attackers, his flames mixing with the ones Mick shot from his heat gun.

Ray and Carter ganged up on a group of baddies as Kendra and Lia attacked three men each.

Leonard froze a man to death as Sara sent a rounded kick to another's face, knocking him out cold.

Kendra and Carter landed on the auction platform in front of Vandal Savage and the nuclear bomb. The three of them shared a few words, probably threats and sneers, before Savage ran off.

I was too far away to hear what they were saying, and the noise around me was so overwhelming that I couldn't make anything out through the comlink.

As the hawks took to the sky again, a blast of ice shot a guy to the ground in front of me. I jumped. I hadn't realized that he'd been sneaking up on me until the cold gun went off.

Turning I spotted Leonard standing a few feet away with an annoyed expression on his face. "You gonna just keep standing there or are you going to do something useful?"

I blinked. Until that moment, I hadn't even registered that I'd just been standing in one spot the whole time while everyone else kicked ass.

"Shut up," I snapped at him, mostly because I knew he had a point. I had absolutely no business being apart of this group if I couldn't provide something useful, and so far it looked like all I was doing was getting in the way. But there was no way I was going to tell Leonard that.

He rolled his eyes and ran off to punch some guy in the face before shooting him with the cold gun.

Across the room, Sara and Mick were fighting side by side; at some point she did one of those cool 'person A slides over person B's back and sends a kick to baddie's face' that you always seen on TV.

Mick violently slammed into another bad, sending him tumbling to the floor like Janga pieces. He let out an insane cackle that I could hear all the way from across the room, making me shutter. Had he always been like that?

I shook the thought off and ran over anyways, ducking a few times as Firestorm nearly hit me with their nuclear blasts.

I glared up at them, even though I'm pretty sure they weren't aiming for me. From above, Carter swooped down, whacking the attackers in the head with his mace, knocking them to the floor.

Kendra flew at one man, sending a hard kick to his chest, causing him to shoot across the room, right into one of Ray's ion blasters.

Lia teleported over to the bomb, as Sara climbed onto of the platform just as I reached her and Mick.

Sara frowned, sharing a look of concern with Lia. She turned, yelling out to everyone. "Um, we've got a nuclear bomb here!"

"What?" I yelped. Why didn't the hawks say anything about that when they'd been up there earlier?

Ray flew over; and with a confident, "I've got this!" he pressed a button on the chest of his suit, shrinking down to the size of a pea and flying into the bomb.

It only took a second for things to escalate. One moment the bomb was counting down with a whole minute to spare, the next it was counting down from thirty seconds.

"Ray!" Sara yelled. "What did you do?"

My heart started beating faster at the sound of that. I nervously started biting my fingernails, momentarily forgetting about the raging battle going on behind me.

Ray flew out of the bomb, growing back to normal size again; he was clearly panicking himself. "I didn't do anything! It must have a fail safe."

I looked at Lia with wide eyes as the bomb continued counting down. "Can you, like, teleport it out, maybe?"

She shook her head. "Too big," she said. "I don't have enough energy for that. I could maybe teleport us out before it goes off but..."

"Professor, Jax," Sara called out, cutting Lia off. "We need you!"

Firestorm flew over at once. They grabbed the bomb and burst through the roof of the warehouse, taking the explosive with them.

Lia ran off again as baddies began swarming us. She flipped a man over her shoulder despite the fact that he was a good two feet taller than her.

Sara glanced at me seriously. She squinted her eyes suspiciously, probably noticing that I hadn't done much of anything since this whole thing started. "Can you fight?"

I felt a little stupid, my face heating up the slightest bit as I shook my head. The closest thing I had ever been to a fight was when I teepeed my sophomore History teacher's house for giving me a D on a test that I'd studied really hard for.

She sighed, and I couldn't help feeling like she was a little annoyed by my response. "You're going to need to learn how."

With that, she ran off as well. I wasn't sure if that was an invitation to join her or an order to stay out of the way until I knew what I was doing. Either way it was discouraging.

I didn't really like the idea of punching people's lights out, even if they probably deserved it. But I didn't want to get trampled because I didn't belong on the field either.

I was contemplating what to do, when a man jumped up on the stage and tackled Ray. I screamed, jumping backwards as Ray struggled to fend off the guy.

Fortunately, he managed to gain the upper hand after a moment. Unfortunately, I froze, proving once again that I didn't belong on this time. What was I even doing here?

Ray pushed the guy off of him, shoving him to the ground below the stand. He glanced at me worriedly, as if I was the one who'd just been jumped. (Really, it was a miracle I hadn't been. I guess the baddies even thought I'd be a waste of time.)

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," I lied because there wasn't really much time for heart felt confessions.

"Okay." It didn't look as if he believed me, but he let the subject drop. At least for now. Ray flew off to join the other bad ass super heroes, leaving me to sulk in the middle of a battle field.

I hid behind the stage seeing as how I wasn't much use to anyone and there wasn't too much danger there. Everyone had migrated to the front of the room, and all the baddies were focusing on the others.

If I was lucky, I could just stay out of the way until the action settled down.

From the position I was in I couldn't see what was happening in the fight, but I could hear grunts and metal clanking against skulls, all noises that made me cringe. I sat down, pulling my legs up to my chest when my foot nudged something.

At first I was going to just ignore it, assuming it was a piece of glass or dirt; but when I glanced down I saw it was neither of those things.

It was a tiny piece of red and blue metal; you'd probably never have noticed it unless you felt it under your foot.

My eyes widened as I realized it must have come off of Ray's suit when he was grappling with that guy after Firestorm flew off with the bomb.

Quickly, I grabbed the piece and shoved it into my pocket, making a note to return it to him later.

From outside, there was a large explosion, making me jump. I closed my eyes, fully expecting to get blown to bits; but nothing came.

Slowly, I opened my eyes, peaking over the side of the stage as Firestorm flew back into the warehouse, calling out, "Yo, we got rid of the bomb!"

"Let's get out of here!" Lia ordered, moving towards the exit.

I didn't need to be told twice. I got to my feet, running after her, doing my best to avoid being hit by any remaining baddies.

The others weren't far behind either, punching or kicking anyone who blocked their path of escape. In a matter of seconds, we'd gathered at the door of the warehouse, and Lia teleported us back to the Bureau.

**ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ's ɴᴏᴛᴇ**

I'm sorry for making Skylee such a useless piece of shit. But you know...gotta have room for growth somewhere right? I promise she'll be more useful later on. At least, that's how I plan on writing this.

While this is a love story, I do like having more significant messages in my stories than just "you can fall in love!"

For this story the intended message is something like "You might think you know everything about yourself, but you can always grow." Or...you know something.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

**ᴛʜᴀᴛ's ᴀʟʟ ғᴏʀ ɴᴏᴡ, ᴛᴏᴏᴅʟᴇs!**

**~ ᴇʟsɪᴇ**


	9. Hiatus (?)

yeah...I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's very annoying when authors do this. You start reading and maybe somewhat liking this story but before you get even half way through it the author pulls this stunt. Very, very annoying.

But to be honest, I'm just not really feeling any fanfics right now. I've stretched myself thin, and I think I really need a break. So, I think I may go on hiatus for a few months. Maybe one or two; I should be back maybe November or December.

I apologize for any inconvience.


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